Bfflfflffi&jjH 


SEX  IN  INDUSTRY: 


A   PLEA  FOR  THE  WORKING-GIRL. 


AZEL   AMES,  JR.,   M.D., 

MEMBER    MASSACHUSETTS    MEDICAL   SOCIETY,    HONORARY    MEMBER 

CALIFORNIA  MEDICAL   SOCIETY,    SPECIAL   COMMISSIONER 

OF    INVESTIGATION     MASSACHUSETTS    BUREAU 

OF   STATISTICS    OF    LABOR,    ETC 


BOSTON : 
JAMES    R.    OSGOOD    AND    COMPANY, 

(LATE  TICKNOR  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  OSGOOD,  &  co.) 
1875. 


COPYRIGHT,  1875, 
BY    AZEL    AMES,    JR. 


BOSTON  : 

STEREOTYPED  AND  PRINTED  BY 
RAND,  AVERY,  &  Co. 


PBEFACE. 


SOME  two  years  since,  having  been  commis- 
sioned by  the  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of 
Labor  of  this  Commonwealth,  to  make  certain 
inquiries  as  to  the  conditions  of  homes  and 
employments  of  working-people  whereby  their 
health  might  be  unfavorably  affected,  I  had  my 
attention  called,  while  visiting  a  factory  near  my 
home,  to  the  marvellous  rapidity  of  the  digital 
manipulations  required  by  the  processes  of  a 
light  manufacture  conducted  by  girls.  A  reflec- 
tion upon  the  possible  physiological  tendencies 
of  such  extreme  celerity  opened  a  wide  door  of 
inquisitive  thought ;  and  the  interest  thus  awak- 
ened, heightened  by  the  immediately  subsequent 
appearance  of  Prof.  Edward  II .  Clarke's  "  Sex 
in  Education,"  which  contained  much  bearing 
directly  upon  the  subject,  stimulated  a  wider  study 
of  the  true  relations  sex  sustains  to  industry. 

ivil£6787 


4  PREFACE. 

The  very  considerable  effort  involved  in  such 
farther  inquiry  was  undertaken,  with  many  mis- 
givings, for  the  Bureau  referred  to  ;  and  its  results 
have  appeared  in  part  in  its  annuaJL  report  for  the 
current  year.  The  earnest  interest  and  encour- 
agement of  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  chief  of  the 
Bureau,  who  from  the  first  has  manifested  a  deep 
concern  in  the  investigation  of  the  subject,  and 
the  more  than  generous  co-operation  of  Prof. 
Clarke,  have  prompted  this  attempt  to  place  in  a 
form  for  more  general  consideration  the  facts 
thus  obtained  on  this  subject  of  daily-increasing 
importance.  I  have  made  free  use  of  the  wisdom 
and  experience  of  others  throughout  this  little 
monograph,  believing  that  the  testimony  of 
many  strong  ones  is  better  than  the  assertion  of 
a  single  observer,  which, ,  however  careful  and 
veracious,  taken  alone,  might  be  deemed  the  over- 
expression  of  an  enthusiast  or  specialist.  I  have 
not  hesitated  to  speak  with  directness,  or  to  call 
things  by  their  right  names,  believing  the  cause 
of  truth  to  be  best  served  thereby.  That  the 
subject  is  full  of  difficulties,  the  most  casual 
thinker  cannot  but  perceive.  In  approaching 
them  I  have  endeavored  to  keep  both  the  present 


PREFACE.  5 

and  future  in  view,  woman's  material  and  spirit- 
ual worth,  her  enforced  position,  an$  her  true 
intent.  I  shall  be  more  than  compensated  for 
whatever  of  time  and  labor  I  have  expended,  if 
my  rushlight  shall  have  discovered  any  path  that 
shall  lead  into  broader  day.  Of  my  inability  to 
deal  with  so  broad  a  subject,  except  in  the  most 
ephemeral  way,  and  the  many  evidences  of  this 
that  this  little  volume  contains,  I  am  well  aware. 
I  have  made  no  attempt  at  assuming  Saul's 
armor,  and  shall  be  amply  compensated  if  any 
of  "the  smooth  stones  from  the  brook,"  I  have 
thrown  from  a  novice's  sling,  may  have  found  a 
vulnerable  point  in  a  giant  wrong. 

WAKEFEELD,  April,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


PAKE   I. 
INTRODUCTORY   .       .       .       . 


PAKT  H. 
OBJECTIVE  .  33 

PAKE  HI. 
SUGGESTIVE 128 


"  That  all  our  knowledge  begins  with  experience,  there  can  be 
no  doubt." 

KANT. 


"  The  end  of  the  state  is  not  merely  to  live,  but  to  live  nobly." 

ARISTOTLE  :  Politics,  I.,  2. 


"It  is  only  by  labor  that  thought  can  be  made  healthy,  and  only 
by  thought  that  labor  can  be  made  happy ;  and  the  two  cannot  be 
separated  with  impunity." 

BUSKIN. 


"Women  will  find  their  place;  and  it  will  neither  be  that  in 
which  they  have  been  held,  nor  that  to  which  some  of  them  as- 
pire. Nature's  old  Salic  law  will  not  be  repealed ;  and  no  change 
of  dynasty  will  be  effected." 

HUXLEY. 


SEX    IN    INDUSTRY. 


PART  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

"For  this  the  worth  of  woman  shows  on  every  peopled 

shore : 

Ever  as  man  in  wisdom  grows,  he  honors  her  the  more." 

ELLIOTT. 

MAN,  except  in  the  savage  state,  is  a  work- 
ing animal.  Even  the  pre-historic  intlivid- 
ual  erected  unwittingly  the  monuments  of 
his  industry,  and  fidelity  to  type. 

Woman  has  been,  in  all  time,  man's  com- 
panion and  helper ;  his  elation  to  intelligence 
determining  always  the  degree  of  hardship 
in  her  toil.  Degraded  with  the  savage, 
lightened  in  her  burdens  and  raised  to  higher 
dignities  with  each  step  of  man's  advance, 
the  lines  of  Elliott  express  an  apothegm. 


•'."tO1  ***.;  :     ;  ;S,E%'<IN  INDUSTRY. 

Always  a  collaborator,  but  assuming  new 
importance  as  the  nature  of  her  true  value 
unfolded,  woman's  promotion  with  each 
added  civilization  has  been  toward  equal, 
and  in  some  respects  even  special  partner- 
ship in  the  work  of  life.  Dowered  by  God 
with  equality  of  mental  scope  with  man, 
unlimited  like  him  in  her  possibilities  of 
attainment,  the  sole  imperative  difference  in 
woman,  which  insists  on  full  and  perpetual 
recognition,  is  her  peculiar  sexual  principle, 
—  her  physiological  dissimilarity,  —  at  once 
her  title  to  complemental  rights,  her  glory, 
and  her  opportunity. 

But  woman,  elevated  by  the  advances  of 
civilization,  could  not  escape  participation  in 
its  incident  evils.  These  have  assailed  the 
very  citadel  of  her  strength.  Imaginary 
wants  have  exacted  from  her  an  exhausting 
tribute ;  and  delusions  as  wild  as  those  of 

"  The  crazy  Queen  of  Lebanon  " 

have  caused  her  to  build  from  the  pure  gold 
of  her  possessions  and  privileges  an  altar  to 


INTRODUCTORY.  11 

false  gods.  Seeking  for  her  sex  distinctive 
honors,  she  has  proposed  to  give  up  for  them 
that  which  alone  could  insure  their  pos- 
session. Extremes  meet.  The  demands  of 
savage  barbarity  held  woman  in  an  unsexing 
servitude.  The  abnormities  of  our  civiliza- 
tion are  demanding  anew  of  woman  a  kind 
and  degree  of  labor  similarly  militant  against 
sex. 

Whether  it  comes  from  barbarity,  or  has 
its  origin  in  false  ambitions  or  disarranged 
economy,  the  result  is  the  same  against 
woman,  and  her  highest  work  in  the  world, 
—  the  perpetuation  and  ennobling  of  her 
race. 

The  errors  of  ambition,  the  ignoring  of 
sexual  endowments  in  the  search  for  attain- 
'  ments  and  distinction,  lie  chiefly  within  the 
realm  of  mental  effort,  —  the  work  of  educa- 
tion. The  undue  burdens  imposed  upon  the 
sex  by  the  disarrangement  of  economic  forces 
in  society  deal  mostly  with  bodily  emplo}r,  — 
the  domain  of  industry.  Both,  however,  call 
with  varying  degrees  upon  the  same  organs  ; 


12  SEX  FN  INDUSTRY. 

both  preying  especially  upon  the  sexual  prin- 
ciple and  its  designed  results.* 

The  physiological  characteristics  and  re- 
quirements of  the  forming  female  have  been 
so  adequately  stated  by  recent  writers  f  in 
reference  to  mental  hygiene,  and  are  now  so 
generally  familiar,  that  it  is  not  necessary 
that  they  should  be  re-stated  here. 

An  inimical  influence  upon  brain  or  lower 
organ,  that  has  its  origin  in  education,  is 
equally  inimical  if  it  occur  identically  in 
industry.  That  such  identity  does  occur, 
and  that  industry  presents  in  addition  its 
own  peculiar  phases  of  sexual  unfriendliness, 
it  will  be  my  effort  to  show. 

*  "  "Woman,  in  the  interest  of  the  race,  is  dowered  with 
a  set  of  organs  peculiar  to  herself,  whose  complexity,  del- 
icacy, sympathies,  and  force  are  among  the  marvels  of 
creation.  If  properly  nurtured  and  cared  for,  they  are  a 
source  of  strength  and  power  to  her  :  if  neglected  and  mis- 
managed, they  retaliate  upon  their  possessor  with  weak- 
ness and  disease,  as  well  of  the  mind  as  of  the  body."  — 
PROF.  EDWARD  H.  CLARKE  :  Sex  in  Education,  p.  33. 

f  Edward  H.  Clarke,  M.D.,  Sex  in  Education;  T.  A. 
Gorton,  M.D.,  Principles  of  Mental  Hygiene;  Henry 
Maiwlsley,  M.D.,  Sex  in  Mind  and  Education;  Ely  Van 
de  "Worker;  Popular  Science  Monthly,  February,  1875. 


INTRODUCTORY.  13 

Prof.  Clarke  thus  reviews  the  relation  of 
the  menstrual  function,  the  salient  point  of 
the  sexual  system,  to  the  health  of  both  stu- 
dent and  operative  :  "  The  principal  organs 
of  elimination,  common  to  both  sexes,  are 
the  bowels,  kidneys,  lungs,  and  skin.  A 
neglect  of  their  functions  is  punished  in  each 
alike.  To  woman  is  intrusted  the  exclusive 
management  of  another  process  of  elimina- 
tion, viz.,  the  catamenial  function.  This, 
using  the  blood  for  its  channel  of  operation, 
performs,  like  the  blood,  double  duty.  It  is 
necessary  to  ovulation,  and  to  the  integrity 
of  every  part  of  the  reproductive  apparatus ; 
it  also  serves  as  a  means  of  elimination  for 
the  blood  itself.  A  careless  management  of 
this  function,  at  any  period  of'  life  during 
its  existence,  is  apt  to  be  followed  by  con- 
sequences that  may  be  serious  ;  but  a  neglect 
of  it  during  the  epoch  of  development,  that 
is,  from  the  age  of  fourteen  to  eighteen  or 
twenty,  not  only  produces  great  evil  at  the 
time  of  neglect,  but  leaves  a  large  legacy  of 
evil  to  the  future.  The  system  is  then 
2 


14  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

peculiarly  susceptible ;  and  disturbances  of 
the  delicate  mechanism  we  are  considering, 
induced  during  the  catamenial  weeks  of  that 
critical  age  by  constrained  positions,  muscu- 
lar effort,  brain  work,  and  all  forms  of  men- 
tal and  physical  excitement,  germinate  a 
host  of  ills.  Sometimes  these  causes,  which 
pervade  more  or  less  the  methods  of  instruc- 
tion in  our  public  and  private  schools,  which 
our  social  customs  ignore,  and  to  which 
operatives  of  all  sorts  pay  little  heed,  pro- 
duce an  excessive  performance  of  the  cata- 
menial function;  and  this  is  equivalent  to  a 
periodical  hemorrhage.  Sometimes  they  pro- 
duce an  insufficient  performance  of  it ;  and 
this,  by  closing  an  avenue  of  elimination, 
poisons  the  blood,  and  depraves  the  organi- 
zation. The  host  of  ills  thus  induced  are 
known  to  physicians  and  to  the  sufferers  as 
amenorrhea,  menorrhagia,  dysmenorrhea,  hys- 
teria, anemia,  chorea,  and  the  like.  Some 
of  these  fasten  themselves  on  their  victim 
for  a  lifetime,  and  some  are  shaken  off. 
Now  and  then  they  lead  to  an  abortion 


INTRODUCTORY.  15 

of    the     function,    and     consequent    steril- 
ity."* 

While  pointing  out  the  commonality  of 
effect  of  u  constrained  positions,  muscular 
effort,  brain- work,  and  all  forms  of  mental 
or  physical  excitement,"  upon  students  and 
operatives  in  the  direction  indicated,  the  same 
author  urges  two  reasons  why  female  opera- 
tives of  all  sorts  are  likely  to  suffer  less  from 
persistent  work  than  female  students.  The 
first  is,  that  "  the  female  operative  of  what- 
ever sort  has,  as  a  rule,  passed  through  the 
first  critical  epoch  of  woman's  life :  she  has 
got  fairly  by  it."  The  second  is,  "  because 
the  operative  works  her  brain  less."  Though 
I  believe  statistics  f  will  warrant  the  expres- 
sion that  this  first  Conclusion  is  too  inclusive, 

*  Sex  in  Education,  p.  47. 

t  The  United-States  census  of  1870  gives  the  total  num- 
ber of  females  employed  in  industry  between  the  ages  of 
ten  and  fifteen  as  191,100  ;  total  number  (of  these  ages)  in 
manufacturing  and  mechanical  industries,  25,664,  or  about 
13.4  percent  of  the  whole  ;  total  number  females  (all  ages) 
employed  in  all  industries,  1,836,288  :  showing  that  10.4 
per  cent  —  i.e.  191,000  — of  the  whole  number  is  under 
the  age  of  fifteen. 


16  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

the  second  reason  may  be  debated  on  several 
grounds.  It  is  no.  doubt  true  that  the  aggre- 
gate of  simple  cerebration  on  the  part  of  the 
female  operative  is  less  than  the  aggregate 
performed  by  the  female  student.  But  in 
the  intricacy  of  much  modern  machinery,  the 
intrinsic  mental  demands  of  many  processes 
of  employ,  and  the  special  mental  peculiari- 
ties of  others,  it  is  obvious  that  no  inconsid- 
erable amount  of  brain  exaction  is  involved. 
Again :  there  are  conditions  connected  with 
the  acts  of  cerebration  in  the  operative  that 
in  and  of  themselves  are  potent  for  evil ;  as, 
the  monotony,  depression,  bodily  fatigue,  and 
"constrained  position,"  few  of  which  find 
their  counterparts  in  ordinary  student  toil. 
The  statistics  adduced  clearly  give  a  very 
large  per  cent  as  certainly  yet  under  the 
usual  age  at  which  the  menstrual  function 
asserts  itself,  who  are  employed  in  the  indus- 
tries of  the  nation.  To  this  should  be  added 
the  indefinite,  but  surely  considerable  num- 
ber so  employed,  who,  though  over  fifteen, 
cannot  be  presumed  to  be  confirmed  in  the 


INTRODUCTORY.  17 

possession  of  the  "periodic"  habit.  The 
exception  to  a  rule  is  certainly  a  broad  one, 
that  is  based  on  at  least  fifteen  per  cent  of 
all  the  cases  involved. 

The  facts  enumerated  in  regard  to  the 
brain-labor  of  operatives  (of  which  substan- 
tial illustration  will  be  given)  would  indicate, 
if  proven,  that,  if  the  labor  is  absolutely  less 
in  the  aggregate  with  the  working-girl  than 
with  the  scholar,  its  amount  is  indeed  great, 
and,  moreover,  is  performed  under  conditions 
themselves  most  unfavorable.  To  these  sta- 
tistics and  facts  may  be  added  certain  other 
data  of  kindred  significance,  bearing  upon 
the  main  proposition,  that  the  operative  suf- 
fers less  in  the  vital  direction  from  her  em- 
ploy than  the  student  girl  from  hers.  Dr. 
Beard,  speaking  of  longevity,*  adduces  the 
following  reasons  for  the  greater  age  of  brain 
than  muscle  workers :  "  Brain- workers  have 
less  worry,  and  more  comfort  and  happiness, 
than  muscle-workers.  Brain-workers  live 


*  George  M.  Beard,  M.D. :  Public  Health,  p.  57. 

2* 


18  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

under  better  sanitary  conditions  than  muscle- 
workers.  Brain-workers  can  adapt  their 
labor  to  their  moods  and  hours,  and  periods 
of  greatest  capacity  for  labor,  better  than 
muscle-workers."  The  death-rate  tables  *  of 
three  hundred  inhabitants  of  Preston,  Eng., 
one  hundred  being  taken  from  each  of  the 
three  classes,  —  the  gentry,  tradesmen,  and 
operatives,  —  give  surprising  results  against 
the  operative  class,  both  as  to  longevity  and 
youthful  deaths. 

These  and  similar  observations  seem  to 
stimulate  at  least  a  doubt  whether  the  dan- 
gers to  forming  woman,  conversely  of  the 
foregoing  proposition,  do  not  equally  reside 
in  industry  and  education.  That  some  of 
the  avenues  of  industry  embrace  processes 
potent  in  their  aggressions  against  the  integ- 
rity of  female  health,  with  even  those  of* 
advanced  years,  has  been  frequently  deter- 
mined. 

But,  over  and  beyond  the  lines  of  simi- 

*  See  Prin.  Mental  Hygiene,  D.  A.  Gorton,  M.D.,  p.  116. 


INTRODUCTORY.  19 

larity  in  the  effects  of  the  influences  of  the 
worker  and  the  student,  there  are  clear 
points  of  distinction  between  the  relation 
sex  holds  to  education,  and  that  which  it 
sustains  to  industry. 

The  most  advanced  apostle  of  a  differen- 
tial education  for  the  sexes  demands  only,  for 
girls,  a  modification  in  method  and  time ;  not 
a  substitution  of  ultimate  ends,  or  rejection 
of  contemplated  attainments. 

On  the  contrary,  the  guardian  of  the 
youthful  female  in  her  industrial  pursuits 
seeks  not  only  to  ameliorate  her  condition  in 
some,  but  would  bar  her  altogether  from 
participation  in  many. 

In  education,  uthe  question,"  as  Prof. 
Clarke  admirably  puts  it,  "  is  not,  Shall 
woman  learn  the  alphabet  ?  but,  Hoiv  shall 
she  learn  it  ?  "  In  industry,  the  questions, 
in  view  of  precisely  the  same  physiological 
facts,  are,  first,  What  shall  she  do,  and  what 
not  do?  and,  second,  How  shall  she  least 
harmfully  do  that  which  she  may  under- 
take? 


20  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

So  far  as  purely  economic  and  material 
interests  are  concerned,  it  also  appears,  that 
if,  by  the  indiscretions  of  educational  meth- 
ods, the  young  female  sacrifices  life  or 
health,  the  loss,  though  great,  is  but  that,  so 
far  as  the  state  is  concerned,  of  an  unpro- 
ductive unit,  and  its  capacities  for  increase. 
If,  however,  the  working-girl  is  destroyed  by 
her  labors,  the  commonwealth  loses  both 
herself  as  a  present  integer  in  the  mainten- 
ance of  society,  and  her  creative  possibilities 
and  powers  for  the  future  of  the  race.  The 
student  was  as  yet,  in  the  strict  sense,  a 
burden  upon  the  community:  the  worker 
was  a  productive  and  helpful  member  of  it. 
The  one  may  have  given  promise  of  a  life  of 
usefulness :  the  other  had  begun  it.  If  an 
account  current,  on  a  purely  economic  basis, 
were  to  be  opened  between  society  and  these 
two  girls,  the  student  would  stand  debited 
with  continual  outgo,  and  with  nothing  to 
her  credit  in  return:  the  worker's  page 
would  exhibit  the  cost  of  maintenance  and 
development  to  the  point  when  her  earning 


INTRODUCTORY.  21 

began,  and  then  the  credit  side  would  begin 
to  bear  figures.  But  homicidal  and  suicidal 
characteristics  in  the  vocations  of  each  have 
cut  short  their  careers,  and  closed  the  ac- 
count. The  balances  being  struck,  it  will 
of  course  be  found,  that  as  an  investment,  so 
far  as  present  material  interests  are  con- 
cerned, the  student  has  been  least  profitable : 
that  which  was  invested  is  gone.  But 
if  future  possibilities  and  expectations  could 
be  computed,  as  longevity  is  by  "  life-tables," 
then  the  expenditure  might  stand  in  the 
light  of  a  venture  whose  every  promise  was 
satisfactory,  but  which  some  unforeseen  mis- 
fortune rendered  a  dead  loss.  Of  course  it 
is  of  paramount  importance  for  the  commu- 
nity to  prevent  a  loss,  which,  if  it  occur 
now,  is  total,  but  which,  averted,  by  further 
expenditure  and  the  alchemy  of  time  is 
transmuted  into  gain.  It  is  equally  clear, 
that  to  lose  in  toto  an  investment  that  has 
become  a  source  of  revenue,  is,  so  far  as 
present  time  and  economic  forces  are  con- 
cerned, a  graver  loss  than  the  abstraction  of 


22  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

that  which  is  still  depletory.  The  value 
of  the  one  is  present  and  real,  that  of  the 
othf.r  prospective  and  uncertain. 

As  our  future  must  be  built  up  out  of  our 
present,  as  the  animal  must  exist  for  the 
mental  and  spiritual  to  build  upon,  so  far  as 
purely  political  and  social  considerations  go, 
the  present  loss  of  the  worker  is  greater.  It 
is  only  when  we  rise  to  a  plane  of  higher 
contemplation  of  life,  and  view  it  as  more 
than  a  social  system  constituted  and  ruled 
only  for  terrestrial  duration,  that  we  obtain 
a  better  conception  of  harmonious  possibili- 
ties and  ends  for  both  student  and  worker. 
The  power  to  originate  and  organize  is 
always  greater  and  more  valuable  than  that 
of  simple  execution  of  details ;  principles 
being  always  higher  than  their  adaptation. 
A  recognition  of  principles,  and  the  posses- 
sion of  power,  are  evolved  only  from  breadth 
of  knowledge.  Hence  there  can  be  little 
doubt,  that  were  the  student  and  worker 
both  to  retain  health,  and  enjoy  the  normal 
progress  of  their  several  vocations,  and 


INTRODUCTORY.  23 

eventually  find  their  true  place*  in  the 
world's  work  as  perpetuators  and  moulders 
of  it,  the  student,  as  a  mother  and  trainer  of 
men,  would  be  most  valuable.  Carry  for- 
ward the  student  and  worker  to  a  condition 
where  other  standards  than  those  of  earth 
are  dominant,  and  physical  bonds  are  left 
behind,  and  the  intrinsic  individuality  of 
each,  being  gauged  by  a  supreme  wisdom, 
will  find  an  exact  recognition  a  finite  mind 
could  not  give. 

But  the  dangers  to  female  life  and  health 
from  the  special  ills  incident  to  industrial 

*  "We  have  been  studying  woman,  in  her  relation  to 
the  subject  of  this  paper  (professions  and  skilled  labor), 
as  a  sexual  being ;  and,  if  we  continue  the  study  in  the 
same  direction,  we  must  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that 
marriage  is  not  an  optional  matter  with  her.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  a  prime  necessity  to  her  normal  physical  and 
intellectual  life.  There  is  an  undercurrent  of  impulse 
impelling  every  healthy  woman  to  marry.  That  this  is  a 
law  of  her  sexual  being,  we  know  by  the  positive  evidence 
of  medical  men  and  others.  We  also  know  that  the 
married  woman  exerts  a  more  marked  influence  upon 
men,  and  society  in  general,  than  the  celibate." — ELY  VAN 
DE  WARKER,  M.D. :  in  Popular  Science  Monthly,  February, 
1875. 


24  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

pursuits,  and   their  effect   upon   the  public 
weal,  are  the  present  concern. 

The  results  upon  the  community  of  the  loss 
of  the  young  female  operative  have  already 
been  shown.  Bad  as  these  are,*  if  the  evils 
of  employ  break  down  the  health,  rather  than 
destroy  life,  —  as  is  the  rule, —  a  heavier 
burden  is  thereby  entailed  than  results  from 
actual  death.  Years  of  total  invalidism  in- 
volve both  the  loss  of  the  individual's  pro- 
duction, with  its  increase,  and  the  production 
and  its  increase  of  those  who  care  for  the  dis- 
abled. Proportionate  degrees  of  dependence 

*  "In  Massachusetts,  during  the  seven  years  18G5  to 
1871,  72,727  died  in  their  working  period.  In  the  fulness 
of  health  and  completeness  of  life,  they  would  have 
had  opportunity  of  laboring  for  themselves,  their  fami- 
lies, and  the  public,  in  all  3,606,350  years;  but  the  total  of 
their  labors  amounted  only  to  1,681,125  years,  leaving  a 
loss  of  1,925,224  by  their  premature  deaths.  This  was  an 
average  annual  loss  of  276,461  years  of  service  and  co-oper- 
ation. Thus  it  appears  that  in  Massachusetts,  one  of  the 
most  favored  States  of  this  country  and  of  the  world,  those 
who  died  within  seven  years  had  contributed  to  the  public 
support  less  than  half — 46.07  per  cent  —  of  what  is  done 
in  the  best  conditions  of  life."  —  EDWARD  JARVIS,  M.D. : 
Polit.  Econ.  of  Health,  Fifth  Rep.  Mass.  Board  of  Health. 


INTRODUCTORY.  25 

on  others  imply  proportionate  loss.  Says  Dr. 
Jarvis,  "  Nor  is  the  loss  by  early  death  all 
that  the  commonwealth  suffers  in  diminu- 
tion of  productive  power  in  the  period  pre- 
sumably devoted  to  profitable  labor.  Even 
while  men  and  women  live  they  are  subject 
to  sickness,  which  lays  a  heavy  tax  on  their 
strength  and  effectiveness.  ...  It  is  esti- 
mated by  the  English  observations  and  calcu- 
lations that  for  every  death  there  are  two 
constantly  sick ;  that  is,  730  days'  sickness 
and  disability  for  every  death."  Reckoning 
on  the  basis  of  calculation  furnished  by  the 
data  of  the  English"'4  sick-clubs,"  it  is  found 
that  there  was  in  the  year  1870,  among  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  of  the  working  pro- 
ductive age,  a  total  amount  of  twenty -four 
thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty-four  years 
and  eight  months'  sickness  or  disability, 
equivalent  to  so  much  loss  of  labor  to  the 
community.  The  bases  on  which  the  Eng- 
lish results  are  made  up  do  not  include  sick- 
ness of  less  than  a  week's  duration,  or  any 
thing  less  than  illness  preventing  labor: 


26  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

hence  a  large  total  of  loss  is  annually  expe- 
rienced which  the  above  estimates  do  not  in- 
clude. There  are,  moreover,  certain  forms 
of  disease,  notably  occasioned  too  by  the 
injurious  effects  of  mental  or  physical  de- 
mands upon  the  sexual  peculiarities  of  young 
women,  which  occasion  a  larger  expense  for 
their  care  than  other  forms.  These  are  the 
various  types  of  insanity.  Says  the  author 
just  quoted,  *  "  Under  the  power  of  this 
disease,  the  sufferers  not  only  cease  to  be 
workers,  and  to  contribute  to  their  own  sup- 
port, and  that  of  their  families  and  the  state, 
but  are  positive  burdens  for  the  cost  of  their 
sustenance,  and  the  care  necessary  for  them 
in  their  wayward  impulsiveness,  and  uncer- 
tainty of  conduct.  In  the  most  favorable 
condition,  the  cost  of  care  and  sustenance 
of  the  insane  is  greater  than  that  of  the 
sound  in  mind ;  and,  with  most,  the  ex- 
pense is  very  much  greater."  The  cost  of 
efforts  at  the  restoration  of  the  insane  is  an 
additional  item,  and  a  heavy  one,  beyond  the 

*•  Edward  Jarvis,  M.D.,  Op.  cit.  p.  382. 


INTRODUCTORY.  27 

cost  of  subsistence,  and  properly  enters  into 
the   sum   total   of  the   possible   burden   in- 
volved by  the  loss  to  effective  industry  of 
the  working  female.     There  is  no  lack  of  \ 
evidence  going  to  establish  the  special  tend-  i 
ency  of  uterine  and  functional  disturbance 
to  produce  insanity,  and  of  the  predisposition  i 
of  certain  lines  of  female  work  to  cause  these  f 
disturbances.     It   is   found  that  "laborers" 
hold  the    second   place   in  numbers  among 
the    patients    of    the   Massachusetts   insane  • 
asylums,  and  that  a  large  preponderance  of 
these  are  females.     Of  these,  it  is  believed 
that  fully  five  per  cent  have  found  the  direct 
or  aggravating  cause  of  their  insanity  *   in 

*  "  It  is  certain,  however,  that  disease  of  them  (the  gen- 
erative organs)  may  act  as  a  powerful  co-operating  cause 
in  the  production  of  insanity,  without  giving  rise,  so  far 
as  we  know,  to  a  special  group  of  symptoms.  Thus,  for 
example,  melancholia  distinguishable  by  no  feature  from 
melancholia  otherwise  caused  may  be  the  effect  of  dis- 
ease of  the  uterus.  Schroder  van  der  Kolk  mentions  the 
case  of  a  woman  profoundly  melancholic  who  suffered 
from  prolapsus  uteri,  and  in  whom  the  melancholia  disap- 
peared when  the  uterus  was  returned  to  the  proper  place. 
I  have  met  with  one  case  in  which  profound  melancholia 


28  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

menstrual  disorder  or  uterine  disease  (not 
including  the  effects  of  the  last  climacteric 
in  woman)  ;  and  it  is  more  than  conjec- 
tured that  a  larger  familiarity  with  the  phe- 
nomena of  insanity,  and  care  in  examination 
of  insane  patients  committed  to  treatment, 
would  establish  a  considerably  increased  per 
cent.  As  most  of  the  female  patients,  who 
find  residence  in  the  State  institutions  for 
the  insane,  are  those  who  have  followed  only 
industrial  pursuits,  their  disorders,  when  ref- 
erable to  their  avocations,  have  clearly  origin- 
ated in  those  of  labor.  The  special  tendency 
to  uterine  disorders  of  certain  employments 
will  be  manifest  in  their  consideration  in 
future  pages. 

There  is  still  another  item  iii  the  error 
account  against  present  customs  of  employ, 
which,  though  not  wholly  related  to  physical 
well-being,  both  by  direct  and  reflex  influ- 
ence is  powerfully  operative  upon  sex,  and 

of  ten  years'  standing  disappeared  after  the  removal  of  a 

prolapsus  uteri.    Other  diseases  and  displacements  of  the 

• 
uterus  may  act  in  the  same  way." — HENRY  MATJDSLEY, 

M.D. :  Body  and  Mind,  p.  93. 


INT  ROD  UCTOR  Y.  29 

its  part  in  the  future  welfare  of  society.  It 
has  long  been  recognized,  that,  for  the  best 
good  of  the  individual  and  posterity,  there 
should  be  a  sound  development  of  body  and 
mind,  requiring  a  pretty  definite  term  for  its 
accomplishment,  as  a  platform  on  which  to 
rightly  pose  the  special  function  of  sex.  A 
failure  to  secure  this  must  inevitably  militate 
against  physical  integrity,  and  to  a  great 
degree  affect  the  moral  status  of  the  sufferer. 
A  youthful  moral  distortion  involves 
inseparable  present  enmity  to  right  physical 
and  mental  development.  To  this  attaches 
persistent  injury  of  fabric ;  and,  even  if  the 
train  of  physical  and  social  evils  incident  to 
prostitution  and  a  life  of  misery  do  not  fol- 
low, there  is  sure  to  result  a  lessened  vigor 
and  vitality.  The  influences  that  bring  about 
these  interchangeable  moral  and  functional 
perversions  are  notably  abundant  in  the 
present  "  omissions  and  commissions  "  of  in- 
dustrial employments.  Says  Gaskell,*  "  The 

*  P.  GASKELL  :  Tlie  Manufacturing  Population  of  Eng- 
land. 

8* 


30  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

crowding  together  numbers  of  the  young  of 
both  sexes  in  factories  is  a  prolific  source 
of  moral  delinquency.  The  stimulus  of  a 
heated  atmosphere,  the  contact  of  opposite 
sexes,  the  example  of  lasciviousness  upon 
the  animal  passions,  —  all  have  conspired  to 
produce  a  very  early  development  of  sexual 
appetencies.  Indeed,  in  this  respect,  the 
female  population  engaged  in  manufactures 
approximates  very  closely  to  that  found  in 
tropical  climates ;  puberty,  or  at  least  sex- 
ual propensities,  being  attained  almost  coe- 
val with  girlhood.  The  early  age  at  which 
sexual  development  calls  into  play  a  crowd 
of  irrepressible  sensations,  —  which,  when 
properly  tempered  and  directed,  form  the 
basis  of  future  character,  —  and  the  unfavora- 
ble circumstances  under  which  this  forced 
development  occurs,  are  in  a  great  measure 
destructive  to  the  well-being,  physical  and 
moral,  of  those  who  may  well  be  called 
its  victims."  The  disregard  paid  the  decen- 
cies of  life  in  the  location  and  condition  of 
water-closets,  etc. ;  the  laxity  with  which 


INTRODUCTORY.  31 

clothing  is  worn,  and  postures  are  assumed, 
in  the  processes  of  manufacture ;  the 
constant  association  of  both  sexes  in  the 
shoe-shop,  the  factory,  and  the  store ;  the 
temperature,  excitement  of  emulation,  etc., 
—  are  all  actively  operative  for  evil  in  this 
direction,  in  our  industrial  system.  It  is  an 
influence  whose  dangers  to  society's  best 
interests  are  co-extensive  with  its  operation. 
I  have  thus  reviewed,  in  an  imperfect  but 
suggestive  way,  the  relations  of  the  health 
of  the  young  female  worker,  as  affected  by 
her  vocations,  to  the  welfare  of  the  com- 
monwealth. This  review  would  seem  to 
indicate,  that  large  numbers  of  her  class  are 
of  an  age  at  which  unfavorable  conditions 
of  employ  act  with  dire  results  against  her 
especial  sexual  attributes ;  that  severe  re- 
quirements of  brain-exercise,  specially  inimiy 
cal  to  sexual  function,  are  exacted  by  maiw 
processes  of  industry  in  which  the  female 
is  engaged;  that  there  are  associate  in- 
fluences of  brain-labor  in  industry  of  extreme 
deleterious  effect,  not  occurring  with  the 


32  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

mental  exercises  of  education ;  that  while 
with  sex  in  education  the  effort  of  the 
reformer  will  be  to  regulate,  in  industry  it 
will  be  to  prohibit  and  banish,  as  well  as  con- 
trol ;  that,  so  far  as  purely  economic  forces 
are  concerned,  the  loss  of  the  working  girl 
by  the  errors  of  employ  is  greater  than  that 
of  the  student;  that  the  maintenance  of 
broken-down  workers  is  a  greater  drain 
upon  the  community  than  their  actual  deaths 
at  an  early  period ;  that  insanity  is  a  form  of 
disease  entailing  special  burdens  on  society  ; 
and  that  the  unlawful  employment  of  young 
girls,  acting  as  a  stimulant  to  premature 
i  development  of  the  sexual  principle,  is  pro- 
ductive of  physical  deficiency  and  immoral 
tendency,  the  latter  acting  reflectively  upon 
the  physical  forces  to  their  greater  detri- 
ment. If  I  have  argued  correctly,  there 
exists  such  a  sum  of  antagonism  against  the 
foundation  necessities  of  existence,  as  well 
demands  the  earnest  attention  of  state  and 
individual. 


PART  II. 

OBJECTIVE. 

"Man  is  not  a  system-builder;  his  loftiest  attainment 
reaches  no  higher  than  this:  through  endeavor, 
through  discipline,  through  virtue,  he  may  see  what 
is." —  PLATO. 

RECOGNIZING  the  position  of  woman  as  a 
chief  factor  in  all  political  and  social  prob- 
lems, and  the  necessity  to  their  happiest 
solution  of  her  most  healthful  status,  especial 
regard  has  been  had  to  the  consideration  of 
employments,  which,  from  their  character, 
might  be  presumed  to  affect  deleteriously 
the  female  operative,  and  more  especially 
the  establishment  and  normal  course  of  her 
peculiar  sexual  functions.  The  field  of  in- 
quiry as  to  the  effect  of  over-mental  exertion 
on  the  special  function  of  the  sex,  so  vigor- 
ously opened  by  Prof.  Clarke,  has  found 


34  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

many  laborers  and  an  abundant  harvest. 
Few,  however,  have  entered  the  correspond- 
ing field  of  inquiry  in  industry.  Strange  as 
it  appears,  widely  and  ably  conducted  as  the 
investigations  of  various  governments  have 
been  into  the  processes  and  influences  bear- 
ing unfavorably  upon  the  health  of  working- 
people,  with  frequent  special  attention  to 
their  results  upon  child-bearing  and  nursing 
women,  and  (in  a  general  way)  upon  chil- 
dren of  tender  years,  there  seems  to  have 
been  no  effort  made  by  authority,  until  that 
\  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of 
|  Labor  in  1874,  to  determine  the  far  more 
important,  the  cardinal  relation  which  labor 
bears  to  this  essential  attribute  of  the  form- 
ing woman,  on  which  so  certainly  hinge  all 
other  vital  results. 

It  is  curious,  in  this  connection,  to  note  in 
the  otherwise  admirable  report*  made  last 
year  to  the  British  Local  Government  Board 
"  on  proposed  changes  in  the  hours  and  ages 

*  Messrs.  Bridges  and  Holmes. 


OBJECTIVE.  35 

of  employment  in  textile  factories,"  that 
there  is  hardly  more  than  a  hint  in  the  fol- 
lowing questions  put  by  these  gentlemen  to 
the  medical  practitioners  of  factory  districts, 
of  any  possibility  of  injury  to  the  young  and 
maturing  female  operatives  in  this  most  im- 
portant direction :  — 

"  1.  Have  you  had  experience  of  factory  opera- 
tives? If  so,  how  long? 

"2.  Have  you  formed  any  opinion  whether  the 
factory  labor,  as  now  carried  on  in  your  district,  has 
any  deleterious  influence  on  the  health  of  the  opera- 
tives ?  Are  there  any  diseases  which  you  have  noticed 
as  being  peculiarly  prevalent  amongst  them  ? 

"3.  Are  there  any  processes  in  the  manufactures 
of  your  district  which  you  believe  to  be  specially  injuri- 
ous to  women  or  children  ?  and,  if  so,  in  what  way  ? 

"4.  Has  the  labor  any  tendency  to  increase  the 
rate  of  infant  mortality?  If  so,  does  this  depend  on 
the  mothers  suckling  their  children  imperfectly,  or  on 
their  working  too  near  their  confinement  ?  Do  you 
know  how  soon  married  women  usually  work  at  the 
mill  before  and  after  delivery  ? 

4 '5.  Do  you  think  that  '  short-timers  '  commence 
work  at  too  early  an  age,  or  that  their  hours  of  work 
are  too  long  ? 


36  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

"  6.  Do  you.  think  the  present  age  of  thirteen  years 
too  early  for  a  child  to  commence  working  'full 
time  '  ? 

"  7.  Do  you  think  that  the  present  day's  work,  ten 
and  a  half  hours,  is  too  long  for  young  persons  or  for 
grown-up  women  ?  " 

With  a  careful  and  highly  commendable 
search  for  causes  of  maternal  injury'  and 
infant  mortality,  there  is  here,  as  elsewhere 
manifest,  a  singular  neglect  of  direct  and 
inquisitive  attention  to  the  dangers  to  the 
basis  conditions,  on  which  healthful  mater- 
nity and  infant  life  depend,  and  which,  more- 
over, are  incident  to  every  one  of  the  sex. 

The  influences  that  inhere  in  special  pro- 
cesses or  forms  of  employment,  and  operate 
injuriously  upon  the  menstrual  function  of 
young  females  engaged  therein,  are  deserv- 
ing of,  and  demand  special  attention,  not 
less  by  the  gravity  than  by  the  extent  of 
their  effects. 

A  process  or  condition  of  employ  that 
tends  to  the  prevention  or  impairment  of  the 
normal  course  of  this  vital  principle  in  wo- 


OBJECTIVE.  37 

man  involves  economic,  sanitary,  and  moral 
questions  of  the  farthest  reach;  for,  when- 
ever successful  in  its  aggressions,  it  brings,  — 

1st.     To  individuals  suffering  thereby,  — 
(a)  Lessened  productive  labor,   and  hence   lessened 

comforts  of  life. 
(5)  Increased  expense,  and  loss  of  vital  force,  time, 

and  money. 

(c)  A  draft  upon  previous  accumulations,  or  debt  and 

obligation. 

(d)  As  a  rule,  lessened  capacity  for  future  production 

by  labor. 

(e)  Bodily  and  mental  distress,  sometimes  tending  to 

intemperance  and  crime,  —  thus  far  all  results 
that  may  be  the  legacies  of  several  forms  of 
disease,  but  specially  resultant  on  the  disturb- 
ances in  review;  while  further  we  have,  — 
(/)  Lessened  probabilities  of  maternity  or  vigorous 
offspring,  with  possible  resultant  loss  of  social 
and  domestic  happiness,  and  even  a  worse  train 
of  sequelce,  including  secondary  disease,  insan- 
ity,* and  death. 

*  While  the  statistics  of  insanity  have  been  hitherto  too 
loosely  collected  to  give  satisfactory  and  reliable  data  as  to 
the  relation  which  uterine  and  menstrual  disorders  bear  to 
insanity,  there  is  sufficient  evidence  to  show  a  very  close 
and  extensive  connection  between  the  two.  Dr.  Bartlett 
4 


38  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

2d.    To  society  it  brings,  — 

(a)  Greater  burdens,  inasmuch  as  it  lays  on  its  mem- 
bers extra  care  and  labor,  —  in  the  strict  sense 
unremunerative. 
(5)  Lessened    production,   present   and  prospective  : 

1.  By  the  loss  of    as   much   as  the  disabled 

laborer  would  have  produced. 

2.  By  the  loss  of  the  natural  increase  of  that 

which  would  have  been  produced. 

3.  By  the  loss  of  the  production  of  those  re- 

quired to  care  for  the  sick,  and  its  natural 
increase. 

4.  By  the  incapacity  to  bear  a  proportionate 

part,  by  maternity,  in  keeping  good  the 
*       strength  of  the  race;  or  by  the  expense, 
loss,  and  burden  involved  in  the  produc- 
tion of  non-vigorous  and  non-productive 
offspring.* 
(c)  Loss  to  the  general  tone  and  work  of  society. 

of  the  Minnesota  Insane  Hospital,  in  analyzing  three 
hundred  and  sixteen  cases  of  insanity,  whose  causes  he 
gives,  attributes  sixty-two,  or  about  twenty  per  cent,  to 
causes  directly  connected  with  uterine  disorder.  Dr. 
Eastman  of  the  "Worcester  (Mass.)  asylum,  in  a  review  of 
a  hundred  and  twenty-nine  cases,  attributes  sixteen,  or 
about  twelve  per  cent,  to  similar  causes. 

*  Says  Gail  Hamilton,  in  "Woman's  Wrongs,"  "To 
give  life  to  a  sentient  being  without  being  able  to  make  pro- 


OBJECTIVE.  39 

It  hardly  seems  credible,  at  first  thought, 
that  the  class  through  whom  such  an  aggre- 
gate of  loss  may  be,  and  really  is,  inflicted 
upon  the  state,  is  composed  of  the  young 
girls  between  the  ages  of  eleven  and  twen- 
ty-one, engaged  in  our  industrial  pursuits 
by  which  their  injury  is  effected.  The  mor- 
tality tables  of  our  cities  and  manufacturing 
towns  hint  at  the  facts,  but  rarely  include 
this  class  under  such  "  causes."  Our  hos- 
pital wards  do  not  often  receive  them  until 
special  agencies  of  disease  have  become  sec- 
ondary or  general-;  but  their  out-patient 
rooms  and  the  "  dispensaries "  are  familiar 

vision  to  turn  life  to  the  best  account,  — to  give  life,  care- 
Jess  whether  it  will  be  bale  or  boon  to  its  recipient, — is 
the  sin  of  sins.  Every  other  sin  mars  what  it  finds:  this 
makes  what  it  mars." 

"Physiological  inquiries  will  serve  to  develop  these 
changes  to  some  extent ;  facts  of  observation  are  likewise 
in  abundance :  and  both  prove  that  a  body  worn  down  and 
debilitated,  although  the  generative  faculty  may  be  unin- 
jured as  to  intensity  in  either  sex,  cannot  give  the  neces- 
sary pabulum  -for  the  production  of  a  vigorous  offspring, 
endowed  with  active  vitality." — GASKELL:  The  Manufac- 
turing Population  of  England,  p.  169. 


40  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

to  them,  and  the  "  corporation "  physician 
and  general  practitioner  are  acquainted  with 
their  troubles.  Profuse,  difficult,  deficient, 
or  retarded  menstruation,  anaemia,  chlorosis, 
anasarca  and  oedema  of  feet,  dyspepsia,  pains 
of  back  and  limbs,  nervous  headaches,  hack- 
ing coughs,  by  and  by  tubercular  symptoms, 
and  more  or  less  early  decline,  is  the  usual 
list  and  order  of  complaints  that  our  errors 
of  industrial  employ  are  establishing  with 
this  portion  of  our  working-world,  and  with 
their  results  are  grafting  upon  our  national- 
ity to  its  steadily  progressive  decline  and 
decay. 

In  the  report  before  quoted,*  it  is  declared, 
that,  — 

"  Amongst  the  women  of  factory  operatives,  much 
more  than  among  the  general  population,  derangements 
of  the  digestive  organs  are  common;  e.g.,  pyrosis,  con- 
stipation, vertigo,  and  headache,  generated  by  neglect 
of  the  calls  of  nature  through  the  early  hours  of 
work  ;  the  short  intervals  at  meals  ;  the  eating  and 

*  Report  on  Proposed  Changes  in  Hours  and  Ages  of 
Employment  in  Textile  Factories. 


OBJECTIVE.  41 

drinking  of  easily  prepared  foods,  as  bread,  tea,  and 
coffee  ;  and  the  neglect  of  meat  and  fresh-cooked 
vegetables.  Other  deranged  states  of  a  still  worse  charac- 
ter are  present ;  e.g.,  leucorrhoza,  and  too  frequent  and 
profuse  menstruation ;  cases  also  of  displacement, 
flexions,  and  versions  of  the  uterus,  arising  from  the 
constant  standing,  and  the  increased  heat  of  and  con- 
finement in  the  mill." 

That  these  ill  effects  are  not  confined  to 
factory-operatives  alone,  but  affect  the  large 
proportion  of  females  of  the  industrial  class, 
the  physician  and  the  philanthropist  have 
long  since  discovered.  The  fact  is,  more- 
over, now  receiving  a  general  recognition. 

What,  then,  are  the  errors  of  employ  that 
entail  upon  the  individual  and  the  commu- 
nity alike  these  serious  results  ? 

I  assume  that,  — 

First  is  the  age  at  which  we  permit  the 
young  girl  to  leave  a  life  of  animal  growth, 
and  become  a  part  of  an  occupation  or  a 
machine. 

Second  is  the  disregard  (even  in  defiance 
of  statute)  which  the  managers  of  our  indus- 

4* 


42  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

tries  exhibit  for  the  cardinal  principles  of  con- 
tinued prosperity  and  individual  happiness, 
in  the  regular  and  prolonged  employ  of  the 
plastic  and  undeveloped  forms  and  powers 
of  these  girls  of  tender  years,  whose  vital 
functions  are  as  yet  incomplete. 

Third  is  their  employment  in  occupations 
which  cannot  be  undertaken  without  injury, 
except  by  those  confirmed  in  the  possession 
of  full  strength  and  capacity. 

Fourth  is  in  summoning  these  girls  to  a 
long  day  of  labor,  and  requiring  their  unre- 
mitting attention  to  it,  under  conditions  and 
circumstances  radically  unfavorable  to  health. 

An  analysis  of  this  grouping  of  causative 
errors  will  show,  under  each  division,  a  de- 
mand for  the  simultaneous  exercise  of  very 
considerable,  often  intense,  activity  of  bodily 
and  mental  forces;  and  it  is  believed,  that 
just  in  proportion  as  these  forces  are  co-ordi- 
nated in  occupations  and  maintained  in  ex- 
treme activity,  the  impairment  and  overthrow 
of  the  peculiar  function  of  the  sex  will  result. 
Upon  that  impairment  and  overthrow  I 


OBJECTIVE.  43 

desire  to  fix  the  observation  of  all  as  a  prime 
factor  in  determining  the  decline  and  mor- 
tality of  young  female  life,  and  the  multiplied 
loss  consequent  thereon.  Says  Mr.  Simon,* 
medical  officer  of  the  Privy  Council  of  Great 
Britain,  — 

u  The  death-rates  of  the  young  are,  in  my  opinion, 
among  the  most  important  studies  in  sanitary  science. 
In  the  first  place,  their  tender  young  lives,  as  com- 
pared with  the  more  hardened  and  acclimatized  lives 
of  the  adult  population,  furnish  a  very  sensitive  test 
of  sanitary  circumstances  ;  .  .  .  and,  secondly, 
those  places  where  they  are  most  apt  to  die  are,  neces- 
sarily, the  places  where  survivors  are  most  sickly,  and 
where,  if  they  struggle  through  a  scrofulous  child- 
hood to  realize  an  abortive  puberty,  they  beget  a  sick- 
lier brood  than  themselves,  even  less  capable  of  labor, 
and  even  less  susceptible  of  education.  It  cannot  be 
too  distinctly  recognized,  that  a  high  local  mortality  of 
youth  must  almost  necessarily  denote  a  high  local  prevalence 
of  those  causes  which  determine  a  degeneration  of  race.9' 

An  inquiry  undertaken  some  two  years 
since  f  left  little  room  for  doubt  as  to  the 

*  Introduction  to  Greenhow's  Report  to  General  Board 
of  Health,  1858. 

t  Sanitary  Condition  Working  Classes  :  Report  Mass. 
Bureau  -Labor  Statistics,  1874. 


44  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

results  of  co-ordinated  mental  and  physical 
activity  on  the  menstrual  function.  A  more 
recent  and  extended  investigation  has  con- 
firmed the  conviction  that  the  train  of  evils 
herein  before  given  as  the  direct  results  and 
sequelae  of  such  functional  disturbance  are 
producible  in  the  immature  female,  and  to 
some  extent  in  the  further  advanced,  — 

First,  By  severe  overwork  alone. 
"  Second,  By  severe  overwork  coupled  with 
innutrition  and  non-hygienic  surroundings,  — 
more  rapidly. 

Third,  By  labor  requiring  great  celerity 
of  manipulation  coupled  with  intense  con- 
centration and  activity  of  mental  forces,  — 
most  rapidly,  —  and  especially  if  under  poor 
nutrition  and  bad  sanitary  conditions. 

Fourth,  Probably,  by  the  secondary  effects 
of  diseases  engendered  or  promoted  by  non- 
hygienic  conditions  of  labor,  as  phthisis 
(consumption),  etc. 

These  causes,  then,  are  direct  and  second- 
ary, and  as  ranged  under  the  four  divisions 
or  "  errors,"  before  declared,  may  be  consid- 
ered seriatim.  The  first  of  these  is  — 


OBJECTIVE..  45 

The  age  at  which  we  permit  the  young 
girl  to  leave  a  life  of  animal  growth,  and 
become  a  part  of  an  occupation  or  a  machine. 

1 '  The  establishment  of  the  sexual  power  at  puber- 
ty, and  its  extinction  with  advancing  age,  both  exert 
important  influence  on  the  constitution.  At  both  of 
these  epochs  there  is  an  increased  liability  to  disease, 
and,  at  the  former,  a  marked  increase  in  the  rate  of 
mortality."* 

It  is  evident,  that  to  maintain  that  con- 
dition of  life  which  shall  best  promote  the 
normal  establishment  and  course  of  a  func- 
"tion  so  beset  with  danger,  and  on  whose  due 
exercise  so  much  depends,  should  be  a  first 
concern  of  all  who  have  any  interest  in  the 
future  welfare  of  the  community.  *  It  is 

*  Dr.  West  on  Diseases  of  Women,  p.  18.  "It  is  not 
enough,"  says  the  same  author,  "  to  take  precautions  till 
menstruation  has  for  the  first  time  occurred  :  the  period 
for  its  return  should,  even  in  the  healthiest  girl,  be  watched 
for,  and  all  previous  precautions  should  be  ouce  more  re- 
peated ;  and  this  should  be  done  again  and  again,  until  at 
length  the  habit  of  regular,  healthy  menstruation  is  estab- 
lished. If  this  be  not  accomplished  during  the  first  few 
years  of  womanhood,  it  will  in  all  probability  never  be 
attained." 


46  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

equally  evident,  that  large  numbers  of  the 
very  class  by  whom,  and  toward  whom,  this 
care  should  be  exercised,  are  engaged  in  em- 
ployments whose  demands  and  conditions 
are  such  as  to  render  them  the  reverse 
of  favorable  circumstances  for  the  true  bal- 
ance of  health  in  this  regard.  Until  this 
faculty  shall  have  been  established  and  con- 
firmed in  its  completeness,  there  can  be  no 
moral  —  there  should  be  no  legal  —  right  of 
a  parent  or  guardian  to  permit,  or  of  an  em- 
ployer to  secure,  the  labor  of  the  immature 

« 

frame  in  occupations  that  in  themselves  or 
their  surroundings  are  inimical  to  the  due 
development  of  the  individual.  If  em- 
ployed, it  should  be  in  pursuits  free  from 
tendencies  to  the  repression  of  the  sexual 
•principle  and  the  almost  purely  animal 
growth  which  the  early  years  of  life  seem 
intended  to  expressly  accomplish.  Labors 
that  demand  full  measures  of  strength  and 
activity,  physical  or  mental,  must  properly 
seek  them  in  those  who  have  passed  this 
climacteric.  Dr.  Barnes,  in  his  excellent 


OBJECTIVE.  47 

work,*  thus   clearly  states  the  relation   of 
influence  and  condition :  — 

* l  Many  of  the  factors  which  account  for  primitive 
amenorrhoea  (or  absence  of  menstruation)  will  also 
induce  secondary  or  accidental  amenorrhoea.  Thus 
defective  nutrition,  unhealthy  occupations  in  crowded 
ill- ventilated  rooms,  blood-tainting  from  exposure  to 
sewage  emanations,  want  of  exercise  in  the  open  air, 
which  implies  privation  of  the  wholesome  influences 
of  the  sun,  — will  all  prevent  the  advent  of  menstrua- 
tion. It  is  a  matter  of  observation  that  girls  verging 
on  puberty,  sent  to  boarding-school  or  into  business 
in  large  town  establishments,  commonly  fail  to  men- 
struate, whilst  the  function  is  often  accomplished  on 
the  return  to  free  life  in  the  holidays,  or  on  return  to 
the  country.  What  is  wanted  is  outdoor  exercise, 
and  less  rigorous  strain  upon  the  mind  and  body." 

In  all  factory  employments,  and,  indeed,  in 
many  others  of  the  lighter  and  more  com- 
mercial order,  the  labors  and  attention  of 
the  employee  must  be  incessant,  as  well  as 
arduous ;  and  not  infrequently  the  concen- 
trated thought  and  action  of  the  individual 
must  supplement  and  be  the  essential  com- 

*  Barnes  on  Diseases  of  Women. 


48  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

plement  of  the  motions  of  the  machine 
which  the  operative  tends.  Even  in  many 
of  the  higher  grades  of  labor  in  which  num- 
bers of  young  workwomen  are  engaged,  as 
type-setting,  telegraphing,  money-changing, 
etc.,  the  individual  becomes  almost  or 
wholly  subservient  to,  and  absorbed  by,  the 
occupation  or  process  to  which  she  is  de- 
voted. 

Mr.  Robinson  of  Dukinfield,  in  his  report 
to  Messrs.  Bridges  and  Holmes,*  says,  — 

"  The  injurious  element  in  factory  labor  is  the 
incessant  and  increased  action  of  machinery,  pre- 
venting the  body  having  those  brief  periods  of  repose 
which,  if  left  to  itself,  it  instinctively  would  have.  I 
attribute  the  difference  in  healthy  vigor  between 
colliers  and  mechanics  on  the  one  hand,  and  factory- 
workers  on  the  other,  to  the  constant  demand  upon 
muscular  and  mental  activity  made  by  constant 
action  of  the  swift  machinery. 

' '  Though  the  thing  done  is  so  monotonous  and 
uninteresting,  any  negligence  is  fatal  to  the  work, 
and  the  attention  must  be  unremitting  ;  and  this  call 
for  unremitting  attention  is  increased  by  the  increased 

*  Op.  cit.  p. 


OBJECTIVE.  49 

speed  of  machinery,   and  the  constant  demand  for 
increased  production. 

' '  The  depressing  agents  upon  the  physical  strength 
of  the  operatives  are  not  those  which  exhaust  from 
the  wear  and  tear  of  muscular  fibre  simply,  but  from 
loss  of  nervous  energy  by  perpetual  excitement,  and 
from  long  continuance  in  overcrowded,  ill- ventilated 
rooms."* 

Thousands  of  children,  more  than  half  of 
them  girls,  are  to-day  employed  in  the 
various  industries  of  this  State,  undermining, 
in  a  great  proportion  of  cases,  that  physical 
vigor  which  alone  will  serve  as  a  sound  basis 
for  the  moral,  mental,  and  material  prosper- 
ity of  a  nation. 

I  have  said  that  the  second  causative  error 
affecting  our  growing  girls  in  their  employ- 
ments is  — 

The  disregard  (even  in  defiance  of  the 
statute)  which  our  managers  of  industries 
exhibit  for  the  cardinal  principles  of  contin- 
ued prosperity  and  individual  happiness,  in 
the  regular  and  prolonged  employ  of  the 

*  Report  Sanitary  Condition  of  Leeds,  1842. 
4 


50  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

plastic  and  undeveloped  forms  and  powers 
of  these  girls  of  tender  years  whose  vital 
functions  are  as  yet  incomplete. 

By  far  the  greater  majority  of  those  who 
are  engaged  in  the  lighter  labors  of  manu- 
facturing and  commercial  interests  in  our 
larger  cities  and  towns  have  not  arrived  at 
the  age  when  the  law  governing  such  em- 
ployment releases  them  from  its  control ;  and 
yet  the  provisions  of  the  statute  in  this  re- 
gard are  in  large  measure  utterly  ignored,  and 
every  section  of  the  State  supports  industries 
in  the  processes  of  which  the  law  is  daily  and 
with  unconcern  infracted.  Probably  the 
first  requirement  of  the  law — that  "  no  child 
under  the  age  of  ten  years  shall  be  em- 
ployed in  any  manufacturing  or  mechanical 
establishment  within  this  Commonwealth"  — 
is  violated  with  comparative  rarity ;  but  its 
second  and  quite  as  important  proviso  — 
"  that  no  child  between  the  ages  of  ten  and 
fifteen  shall  be  so  employed  unless  he  or  she 
has  attended  some  public  or  private  school, 
under  teachers  approved  by  the  school  com- 


OBJECTIVE.  51 

mittee  of  the  place  in  which,  such  school  is 
kept,  at  least  three  months  during  the  year 
next  preceding  such  employment,  .  .  .  nor 
shall  such  employment  continue  unless  such 
child  shall  attend  school  at  least  three 
months  in  each  and  every  year"  —  is  most 
wilfully  disregarded.  "  No  child,"  says  the 
law,  "  under  the  age  of  fifteen  years  shall  be 
employed  in  any  manufacturing  establish- 
ment more  than  sixty  hours  in  one  week. 
Any  owner,  agent,  superintendent,  or  over- 
seer of  any  manufacturing  or  mechanical 
establishment  who  shall  knowingly  employ, 
or  permit  to  be  employed,  any  child  in 
violation  of  this  law,  and  any  parent  or  guar- 
dian who  allows  or  consents  to  such  em- 
ployment, shall,  for  such  offence,  forfeit  the 
sum  of  fifty  dollars."  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  these  latter  clauses  of  the  law 
are  most  frequently  and  criminally  thrust 
aside.  It  is  gravely  to  be  regretted  that  our 
law  has  not  recognized  the  established  dis- 
tinction now  so  generally,  as  properly  and 
necessarily  admitted,  as  required  by  the 


52  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

difference  in  sex,  whether  in  mental  or  phys- 
ical labor ;  has  not  defined  with  precision 
in  the  law  itself,  what  shall  be  the  interpre- 
tation of  "  knowingly  employ  ; "  and  has  not 
made  definite  provision  for  its  rigorous  en- 
forcement in  every  city  and  town  in  the 
Commonwealth.  Not  that  the  law  is  fully 
adequate  to  meet  the  evils  pointed  out,  but 
that  it  would,  if  rightly  enforced,  go  a  long 
way  toward  the  remedy  of  those  evils. 
While  the  original  error  of  the  law  is  in 
admitting  to  employ  at  all,  in  such  establish- 
ments, girls  of  such  ages,  and,  as  a  rule, 
boys  even,  and  while  the  change  to  school 
occupations  —  though  an  undoubted  advan- 
tage over  the  hard  grind  of  the  factory  or 
even  shop  life  —  is  but  a  stepping  from  one 
form  of  concentrated  effort  to  another,  even 
the  provisions  that  do  exist  in  law  would 
lessen,  by  much,  the  existing  ills  if  duly 
recognized  or  enforced. 

It  is  the  disregard  manifested  for  the 
future  physical,  mental,  and  moral  condition 
of  these  important  factors  in  the  upbuilding 


OBJECT1 VE.  53 

and  work  of  society,  and  in  their  individual 
belongings,  that  is  so  unfortunate  a  feature 
of  the  methods  of  managers ;  for  while  want 
presses,  and  the  "  wolf  is  at  the  door,"  pres- 
ent needs  will  have  little  thought  of  future 
results,  and  those  who  employ,  or  the  law- 
making  and  enforcing  power,  must  be  at 
such  time  the  governing  mind. 

At  the  mills  in  Fall  River,  Danvers,  Fitch- 
burg,  Wakefield,  Braintree,  and  other  places, 
there  have  been  employed  for  years,  large 
numbers  of  girls  and  boys,  "  knowingly," 
who  have  not  reached  the  age  of  fifteen 
years,  and  have  not  a  day's  or  an  hour's 
schooling  in  the  year;  and  this  with  the 
consent  of  parents  and  guardians.  A  fur- 
ther grave  defect  of  the  existing  law  is  in 
its  exclusiveness,  in  that  it  provides  for 
factory-operatives  only.  While  in  certain 
regards,  as  in  better  ventilation  and  hygienic 
conditions  generally,  the  lot  of  the  girls  and 
boys  of  tender  years  engaged  as  "  cash  "  car- 
riers, etc.,  in  our  large  salesrooms  and  simi- 
lar establishments,  is  better  than  that  of 


54  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

factory  youth,  it  is  one  whose  special  influ- 
ences upon  young  girls  can  but  be  injurious 
in  grave  measure ;  for,  as  I  have  pointed 
out,  it  is  the  regular  and  prolonged  employ, 
engaging  bodily  and  mental  activity  at  ten- 
sion through  so  long  periods  of  time,  that 
draws  upon  the  energies  that  should  be 
chiefly  employed  in  maturing  and  upbuilding 
the  youthful  economy.  What  wonder,  that, 
with  these  energies  sapped  by  the  steady 
drain  of  exhausting  employment,  she  should 
realize  the  assertion  of  West,*  that  "  the 
frail  child  never  passes  completely  into 
womanhood,  but  fades  and  droops  in  the 
transition  stage,  through  which  she  has  not 
the  strength  to  pass  "  ? 

I  heartily  agree  with  the  prominent  Phila- 
delphia physician,  who  writes  as  follows  of 
the  practice  of  compelling  shop-girls  to  stand 
behind  the  counter  during  all  their  hours  of 
service :  — 

"  The  custom  is  selfish,  cruel,  and  useless,  —  selfish 
on  the  part  of  the  proprietor,  requiring  the  women  to 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  42. 


OBJECTIVE.  55 

stand  all  the  time,  whether  serving  customers  or  not, 
and  this  merely  that  they  may  appear  to  be  always  on 
the  alert  to  wait  on  those  who  call.  To  stand  from 
seven  or  eight  in  the  morning  to  six,  eight,  or  ten 
o'clock  at  night,  as  is  the  custom  at  certain  stores, 
with  a  short  time  at  mid-day  for  dinner,  would  weary 
any  man ;  but  to  exact  such  service  from  girls  and  j 
women  is  damnable.  Their  physical  powers  are,  it  f 
is  well  known,  much  weaker  than  those  of  men,  at 
any  rate  ;  and,  by  their  anatomical  and  physiological 
peculiarities,  they  are  entirely  unfit  for  bearing  this 
especially  severe  toil,  namely,  standing  all  day  long.  \ 
My  professional  brethren  who  practise  largely  among 
women  are  constantly  witnessing  the  evil  conse- 
quences of  this  most  cruel  l  rule  of  the  establish- 
ment.'" 

My  attention  was  directed,  not  long  since, 
to  a  shop  on  one  of  the  principal  thorough- 
fares of  Boston,  in  whose  exceedingly  nar- 
row dimensions  of  only  eighteen  by  forty 
feet,  by  eleven  in  height,  heated  by  a  fur- 
nace, no  less  than  fourteen  young  ladies, 
ranging  in  age  from  seventeen  to  twenty- 
four,  are  employed  ;  obliged  by  the  "rule  of 
the  establishment  "  "  always  to  stand,  to  dress 
neatly,  and  to  be  absent  only  half  an  hour 


56  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

at  dinner."  Poisoned  hourly  by  the  pol- 
luted air,  suffering  from  the  enforced  stand- 
ing, obliged  to  dress  "  neatly "  (which  was 
found  to  mean  "  showily  "),  deprived  of  any 
opportunity  for  recuperation  in  the  fresh  air 
(for  half  an  hour  barely  suffices  for  dinner), 
poorly  paid,  and  any  loss  of  time  rigorously^ 
deducted,  it  is  not  to  be  counted  strange  if 
these  girls,  partaking  so  continually  of  phys- 
ical and  moral  poison,  become  both  physi- 
cally and  morally  unsound.  A  morality  that 
robs  and  oppresses  does  not  inculcate  a  mo- 
rality to  resist  temptations  to  illicit  pleasures 
or  deceit,  doubtless  in  some  instances  im- 
pelled to  by  the  deprivations  and  conditions 
imposed. 

In  connection  with  these  errors  of  stand- 
ing, etc.,  Dr.  Van  de  Warker  *  says,  —  , 

"  The  fact  that  those  employments  are  chosen  by 
women  which  permit  a  sitting  position  is  significant 
in  this  relation.  Woman  is  badly  constructed  for 
the  purposes  of  standing  eight  or  ten  hours  upon 
her  feet.  I  do  not  intend  to  bring  into  evidence 

*  Ely  Van  de  Warker,  M.D.,  op.  cit.  p.  461. 


OBJECTIVE.  57 

the  peculiar  position  and  nature  of  the  organs  con- 
tained in  the  pelvis  ;  but  to  call  attention  to  the 
peculiar  structure  of  the  knftftr  and  the  shallowness 
of  the^ pelvis,  and  the  delicate  nature  of  the  foot  as 
jpart  of  a  sustaining  column.  The  knee-joint  jrf  wo^_ 
man  is  a  sexual  characteristic t  Viewed  in  front  and 
extended,  the  joint  in  but  a  slight  degree  interrupts 
the  gradual  taper  of  the  thigh  into  the  leg.  Viewed 
in  a  semiflexed  position,  the  joint  forms  a  smooth 
ovate  spheroid.  The  reason  of  this  lies  in  the  small- 
ness  of  the  patella  in  front,  and  the  narrowness  of  the 
articular  surfaces  of  the  tibia  and  femur,  and  which 
in  man  form  the  lateral  prominences,  and  thus  is 
much  more  perfect  as  part  of  a  sustaining  column 
than  that  of  woman.  The  muscles  which  keep  the 
body  fixed  upon  the  thighs  in  the  erect  position  labor 
under  the  disadvantage  of  shortness  of  purchase, 
owing  to  the  short  distance,  compared  to  that  of  man, 
between  the  crest  of  the  ilium  and  the  great  trochanter 
of  the  femur,  thus  giving  to  man  a  much  larger  pur- 
chase in  the  leverage  existing  between  the  trunk  and 
the  extremities.  Comparatively  the  foot  is  less  able 
to  sustain  weight  than  that  of  man,  owing  to  its 
shortness,  and  the  more  delicate  structure  of  the  tarsus 
and  metatarsus.  I  do  not  think  there  can  be  any 
doubt  that  women  have  instinctively  avoided  some  of 
the  skilled  labors  on  anatomical  peculiarities." 


58  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

It  will  readily  be  recognized,  that  the 
abnormal  requirement  of  prolonged  standing 
is  one  to  which  a  very  large  proportion  of  our 
working-girls  are  subject,  in  a  wide  range  of 
employment.  Both  physiological  and  ana- 
tomical considerations  cry  out  against  it,  and 
common  humanity  should  prohibit  it. 

The  following  illustration,  taken  from  Prof. 
Clarke,*  notes  in  a  marked  manner  the  ill 
effects  of  standing,  and  general  error  in  the 
conduct  of  industrial  pursuits  by  our  young 
women :  — 

"  Miss   C was   a  bookkeeper  in   a  mercantile 

house.  The  length  of  time  she  remained  in  the  em- 
ploy of  the  house,  and  its  character,  are  a  sufficient 
guaranty  that  she  did  her  work  well.  Like  the  other 
clerks,  she  was  at  her  post,  standing  during  business 
hours,  from  Monday  morning  till  Saturday  night. 
The  female  pelvis  being  wider  than  that  of  the  male, 
the  weight  of  the  body  in  the  upright  posture  tends 
to  press  the  upper  extremities  out  laterally  in  females 
more  than  in  males.  Hence  the  former  can  stand  less 
long  with  comfort  than  the  latter.  Miss  C ,  how- 
ever, believed  in  doing  her  work  in  a  man's  way,  in- 
fected by  the  not  uncommon  notion  that  womanliness 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  77. 


OBJECTIVE.  59 

means  manliness.  Moreover,  she  would  not,  or  could 
not,  make  any  more  allowance  for  the  periodicity  of 
her  organization  than  for  the  shape  of  her  skeleton. 
When  about  twenty  years  of  age,  perhaps  a  year  or 
so  older,  she  applied  to  me  for  advice  in  consequence 
of  neuralgia,  backache,  menorrhagia,  leucorrhoea,  and 
general  debility.  She  was  anemic,  and  looked  pale, 
care-worn,  and  anxious. 

1 '  There  was  no  evidence  of  any  local  organic  affection 
of  the  pelvic  organs.  i  Get  a  woman's  periodical 
remission  from  labor,  if  intermission  is  impossible, 
and  do  your  work  in  a  woman's  way,  not  copying  a 
man's  fashion,  and  you  will  need  very  little  apothe- 
cary's stuff,'  was  the  advice  she  received.  i  I  must  go 
on  as  I  am  doing,'  was  her  answer.  She  tried  iron, 
sitz-baths,  and  the  like  :  of  course  they  were  of  no 
avail.  Latterly  I  have  lost  sight  ^of  her,  and,  from 
her  appearance  at  her  last  visit  to  me,  presume  she 
has  gone  to  a  world  where  backache,  and  male  and 
female  skeletons,  are  unknown." 

NOTE.  —  "Female  clerks  in  stores  strive  to  emulate  the 
males  by  unremitting  labor,  seeking  to  develop  feminine 
force  by  masculine  methods. 

"Female  operatives  of  all  sorts,  in  factories  and  else- 
where, labor  in  the  same  way;  and,  when  the  day  is  done, 
are  as  likely  to  dance  half  the  night,  regardless  of  any 
pressure  upon  them  of  a  peculiar  function,  as  their  fash- 
ionable sisters  in  the  polite  world."  —  PROF.  CLARKE,  op. 
tit.,  p.  130. 


60  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

The  third  of  causative  errors  we  have 
stated  to  be  — 

Their  employment  in  occupations  which 
cannot  be  undertaken  without  injury,  except 
by  those  confirmed  in  the  possession  of  full 
strength  and  capacity. 

The  consideration  of  this  error,  while  it 
embraces  the  more  youthful  class  to  which  I 
have  just  referred,  brings  into  the  foreground 
those  of  more  advanced  years,  who,  though 
in  part  accomplishing  the  evolutions  designed 
by  nature,  are  as  yet  insecure  in  such  attri- 
butes, and  are  hence  liable  to  the  added  dan- 
gers incident  to  their  advance.  It  is  not  to 
be  hoped  for,  in  this  work-a-day  world,  that 
we  are  to  be  freed  from  all  employments  that 
will  fail  —  with  all  the  alleviations  that  may 
be  devised  —  to  be  divorced  from  severe 
mental  and  bodily  energy ;  neither  is  it  ex- 
pected, or  desirable,  that  the  larger  proportion 
of  the  class  whom  we  have  in  consideration 
—  the  girls  and  young  women  from  eleven  to 
twenty-one  —  should  be  exempted  at  once 
from  some  form  of  industrial  occupation. 


OBJECTIVE.  61 

The  effort  will  of  necessity  be,  to  establish 
the  right  adjustment  of  forces,  all  the  require- 
ments being  considered.  The  occupations 
that  demand  maturity  of  strength  and  full 
possession  of  functional  power  for  their 
harmless  or  least  injurious  pursuit,  are  not 
readily  designated  ;  but  from  investigation  it 
is  warrantable  to  conclude,  that  those  employ- 
ments which  demand  extreme  mental  activity 
with  celerity  of  movement  long  continued, 
involving  unremitting  attention,  condensed 
thought,  and  nervous  alertness,  cannot  long 
be  participated  in  by  those  whose  powers  of 
life  are  unconfirmed. 

Hence  the  true  "division  of  labor"  will 
be  that  which  delegates  processes  or  occupa- 
tions requiring  the  fullest  powers  of  mind 
and  body  continuously,  to  those  whose  ma- 
turity may  bear  its  burdens  with  least  oppres- 
sion ;  distributing  to  the  weaker  —  "  to  each 
according  to  her  several  ability  "  — the  pur- 
suits which  a  regard  for  future  weal  will  not 
interdict  their  prosecution  of.  The  true 
"  hours  of  labor  "  will  be  based,  so  far  as 


62  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

sex  is  concerned,  on  these  considerations  ;  and 
the  true  "  work  of  reform  "  will  be  such  in- 
telligent arrangement  of  legislation,  and  its 
enforcement,  and  such  amelioration  of  the 
present  attendant  ills,  as  can  come  only  from 
a  just  and  proper  comprehension  of  these 
God-created  demands  of  sexual  peculiarity.* 
To  ascertain,  as  reliably  as  might  be,  the 
effects  of  the  varying  characteristics  of  labor 
upon  the  youthful  female  engaged  therein, 
study  has  been  made  of  various  industries, 
considering  them  not  as  so  man}-  trades  or 
vocations  simply,  but  rather  as  types  and 
expressions  of  different  degrees  and  kinds  of 
influence  exerted  thereby ;  the  physical,  men- 
tal, mento-physical,  reciprocal,  etc.  These 
inquiries  have  been  especially  into  the  effects 
of  factory  employments,  type-setting,  teleg- 
raphy, sewing-machine  operation,  basket- 
making,  the  counting  of  money,  strands,  etc., 
with  casual  examination  into  other  lines. 

*  "  This  effort  of  woman  to  invade  all  the  higher  forms 
of  labor,  is  a  force  battling  with  the  established  order 
of  sexual  relation."  —  DR.  VAN  DE  WARKER,  op.  cit.  p.  470. 


OBJECTIVE.  63 

Minutes  of  the  inquiry  into  each  are  herein- 
after given  in  full. 

The  fourth  of  these  causative  errors  enu- 
merated is  — 

In  summoning  these  girls  to  a  long  day  of 
labor,  and  requiring  their  unremitting  atten- 
tion to  it,  un'der  conditions  and  circumstances 
radically  unfavorable  to  health. 

That  the  hours  of  labor  are  long,  that  the 
attention  to  the  work  in  hand  must  often  be 
most  exacting,  and  that  the  attendant  con- 
ditions in  which  too  many  of  our  forms  of 
labor  are  prosecuted  are  "  only  evil,  and 
that  continually,"  are  perhaps  the  most 
earnestly  protested  and  readily  patent  of  any 
of  the  claims  put  forward  by  the  advocates 
of  the  improvement  in  the  conditions  of 
Avorking-people. 

The  postulate  of  these  advocates  *  in  Eng- 
land, the  examination  of  which  created  the 
commission  before  referred  to,  was,  that 
"  ten  hours  arid  a  half  of  monotonous,  un- 
ceasing labor,  even  under  the  most  healthy 

*  Bridges  and  Holmes.    Hep. ,  p.  4. 


64  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

conditions,  are  said  to  be  a  longer  time  than 
is  consistent  with  the  health  of  young  per- 
sons between  the  ages  of  thirteen  and 
eighteen,  and  of  women  generally,  of  what- 
ever age." 

To  this,  the  rejoinder  of  the  Employers' 
Association  was,  •'  that  their0  bright  and 
healthy  appearance  is  patent  to  all.  Thou- 
sands of  women  are  now  earning  upward  of 
twenty  shillings  per  week ;  and  those  of 
mature  age,  whose  employment  is  suited  to 
their  strength,  supply  no  evidence  that  they 
cannot  with  comfort  and  health  work  as 
long  hours  as  men."  Even  with  the  very 
remarkable  proviso  embraced  in  this  reply,  — 
which  I  have  Italicized,  — by  investigation, 
the  commission  was  forced  to  a  conclu- 
sion quite  the  reverse  of  the  assertion,  that 
"  their  bright  and  healthy  appearance  was 
patent  to  all ; "  nor  did  it  conclude,  that,  in 
such  employment  as  seemed  to  be  thought 
"  suited  to  their  strength,  there  was  no  evi- 
dence that  women  cannot  with  comfort  and 
health  work  as  long  as  men,"  though  at  ma- 
ture asre. 


OBJECTIVE.  65 

The  unremitting  attention  demanded  by 
certain  lines  of  labor,  and  commented  on  as 
especially  deleterious  in  its  influence,  I  shall 
consider,  together  with  the  non-hygienic 
surroundings  and  conditions,  in  connection 
with  special  forms  of  employ. 

An  analysis  of  the  four  causative  errors  in 
the  management  of  industry,  which  I  have 
assumed  to  be  the  chief  sources  of  disturb- 
ances peculiar  to  the  working-girl,  show, 
that,  under  the  first,  we  have,  — 

Youth  unequal  to  the  positions  occupied 
in  judgment  or  ability ;  impairment  of  animal 
growth;  a  constrained  condition,  as  a  com- 
plemental  part  of  a  process  or  machine. 
Under  the  second,  — 

Disregard  of  ultimate  injurious  effects  on 
laborers  and  the  community ;  unbroken  appli- 
cation, without  vacations,  for  long  terms; 
depressing  and  disease-inviting  demands  on 
immature  vitality.  Under  the  third,  — 

Employ  in  unsuitable  occupations  for  the 
condition  and  strength  existing.  Under  the 
fourth,  — 


66  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

Unduly  long  hours  ;  concentration  of  vital 
energies,  involving  extreme  nerve-tension  ; 
unfavorable  sanitary  conditions  in  surround- 
ings, and  nature  of  processes. 

It  will  be  observed  from  this  analysis,  that 
the  various  influences  under  different  heads 
are  often  exactly  identical  in  their  special 
effects,  although  arrived  at  from  different 
initial  pointy,  and  that  each  of  these  special 
effects  is  potent  in  creating  the  condition 
under  consideration. 

We  have  enumerated  four  methods  where- 
by the  occupations  of  workwomen  may 
and  do  bring  about  the  menstrual  disturb- 
ances and  the  results  we  have  mentioned,  — 
overwork;  overwork,  with  innutrition  and 
non-sanitary  associations ;  labor  conjoining 
extreme  activity  of  body  and  mind ;  and  the 
effects  of  disease  primarily  produced  by  the 
three  foregoing  causes.  The  last  of  these 
unqestionably  may  stand  either  in  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  or  effect,  it  being  beyond  doubt 
that  consumption,  which  produces  oftentimes 
menstrual  overthrow  in  its  toil-broken  vie- 


OBJECTIVE.  67 

tim,  may  be  and  is  itself  produced  by  failure 
of  the  function  in  the  forming  girl.*  That 
one  has  been  the  parent  of  the  other,  with 
interchangeable  priority,  and  that  both  have 
proceeded  from  certain  evils  incident  to  a 
life  of  labor,  no  observer  of  the  working- 
women  of  the  land,  can  doubt. "  "  Amenor- 
rhcea  (retarded  menstruation),  especially  if 
attended  with  chloro-aiiaemia,  is  very  liable 
to  merge  into,  to  induce,  pulmonary  con- 
sumption" f  "Not  uncommonly,"  says  Dr. 
Clapton,  "  phthisis  appears  to  be  developed 
in  consequence  of  emansio-mensium ;  but 
phthisis  in  nearly  every  case  stops  menstrua- 
tion." "With  suppressed  menstruation," 

*  "Experience,   our  only  sure  guide  in   medical  in- 
quiries, instructs  the  physician  that  a  diseased  condition 
of  the  body  produces  an  alteration  in  the  condition  of  the 
mind;  and  that  certain  emotions  of  the  soul,  whether  of 
a  pleasurable  or  painful  nature,  are  universally  attended 
with   reciprocal  alteration  in    the    bodily  functions."  — 
FORBES  WINS  LOW  :  Body  and  Mind,  p.  153.     "Functional 
derangement  and  alteration  necessarily  result  from  this 
state  of  things,  leading  to  disease  and  change  of  structure 
in  the  organs."  —GRAHAM'S  Science  of  Life,  sec.  305. 

*  Barnes,  op.  cit. 


68  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

says  West,*  "  the  one  great  danger  to  watch 
against  is  the  supervention  of  phthisis." 

THE   MANUFACTURE  OF   TEXTILE  FABRICS. 

The  manufacture  of  textile  fabrics,  con- 
sidered as  an  avenue  of  production  of  the 
several  causes  of  ill  health  already  dwelt 
upon,  may  be  looked  upon  as  including  them 
all,  and  hence  becomes  worthy  the  closest 
attention ;  not  only  as  a  source  of  results  so 
unfortunate,  but  also  as  being  one  of  exceed- 
ing magnitude,  extending  its  deleterious  in- 
fluence to  a  wider  range  than  any  other 
equally  injurious  employ. 

While,  with  exceptions,  it  may  be  fairly 
considered,  in  the  average,  as  not  an  extreme- 
ly laborious  employ,  either  in  this  country 
or  abroad,  for  the  younger  portion  of  the 
female  operatives  employed  therein,  and  in 
some  of  its  processes  in  particular,  there  is 
a  degree  of  toil  disproportionate  to  the  con- 
dition and  capacity  of  those  engaged ;  while 

*  Op.  cit.  p,  45. 


OBJECTIVE.  69 

the  effects  of  the  unremitting  and  monoto- 
nous *  character  of  most  of  the  work  can  but 
stand  in  a  direct  causative  relation  to  the 
disturbances  and  depressions  I  have  pointed 
out  as  especially  deplorable.  It  will  further 
be  seen,  that,  in  this  branch  of  industry  in 
particular,  the  special  influences  that  operate 
for  the  production  and  aggravation  of  pul- 
monary complaints  exist  to  a  degree  that 
obtains  in  no  other.  Reviewing  the  unre- 
mitting and  monotonous  character  of  factory 
work,  as  productive  of  lessened  vigor  and 
vitality,  Messrs.  Bridges  and  Holmes*  state 
that,  — 

' '  Light  though  factory  labor  in  almost  all  its  de- 
partments unquestionably  is,  additional  leisure  of  six 
hours  per  week  would  tend  to  increase  the  vitality 
and  vigor  of  the  women  and  children  engaged  in  it. 
We  have  already  referred  more  than  once  to  the  unre- 
mitting and  monotonous  character  of  all  labor  at  a 
machine  driven  by  steam.  If  the  day's  work  of  a 

*  "  So  a  functional  disturbance  of  the  cerebrum  is  often 
induced  by  the  irregular  action  of  other  parts  of  the  nerv- 
ous system,  especially  those  connected  Avith  the  repro- 
ductive apparatus."  — W.  B.  CARPENTER,  M.D:  Mental 
Physiology,  p.  660. 

t  Op.  cit.  p.  60. 


70  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

housemaid,  or  even  of  a  charwoman,  be  closely  looked 
at,  and  compared  with  that  of  an  ordinary  mill-hand  in 
a  card-room  or  spinning-room,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
former,  though  making  greater  muscular  efforts  than 
are  ever  exacted  from  the  latter,  is  yet  continually 
changing  both  her  occupation  and  her  posture,  and 
has  very  frequent  intervals  of  rest.  Work  at  a  ma- 
chine has  inevitably  a  treadmill  character  about  it. 
Each  step  may  be  easy,  but  it  must  be  performed  at 
the  exact  moment,  under  pain  of  consequences.  In 
hand-wrork  and  house-work  there  is  a  certain  freedom 
of  doing  or  of  leaving  undone.  Mill-work  must  be 
done  as  if  by  clock-work." 

The  cotton-factory,  as  well  as  being  the 
most  extensive,  is,  perhaps,  as  fair  a  repre- 
sentative of  textile  factories  as  can  be  given, 
all  conditions  considered. 

In  this  department  of  textile  manufac- 
tories, it  is  not  probable  that  purely  muscular 
"  overwork,"  except  in  very  young  girls,  or 
in  one  or  two  special  processes,  e.g.,  "  draw- 
ing "  and  u  weaving,"  is  a  source  of  any  con- 
siderable functional  injury,  ordinarily;  but  it 
is  interesting  to  note,  that,  when  it  does 
become  so,  it  is  as  a  result  of  the  grafting  on 


OBJECTIVE.  71 

of  a  species  of  mental  activity,  viz.,  the  ex- 
citement and  spurring  involved  in  the  effort 
of  a  "  piece-worker  "  to  accomplish  a  certain 
result,  and  obtain  a  proportionate  wage. 

Contrary  to  the  opinion  expressed  by 
Judge  Cowley,*  that  "it  can  hardly  be  said 
that  piece-workers'  health  is  either  better  or 
worse  than  the  health  of  day-workers,"  in- 
quiries the  present  year,  both  within  the 
mills  and  of  physicians  in  factory  localities, 
lead  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  piece-workers 
do  suffer,  both  in  general  and  special  dis- 
turbance, to  a  greater  degree  than  day-work- 
ers. Inquiry  of  a  distinguished  physician 
who  has  enjoyed  a  large  practice  in  one  of 
the  principal  cotton-factory  cities  of  the 
State,  and  who  is  noted  for  his  exactness  in 
method  and  record,  brought  out  the  fact,  as 
established  by  his  private  and  hospital 
records,  that  nearly  a  third  more  came  under 
his  professional  observation  from  the  piece- 
workers than  from  the  day-workers.  An 
inquiry  after  those  who  had  been  counted  the 

*  Eep.  Mass.  Bureau  Statistics  of  Labor,  1873,  p.  282. 


72  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

ablest  workers  in  the  mills  through  a  period 
of  years,  and  had  made  largest  wages,  estab- 
lished the  facts  that  they  were  piece-workers, 
and  that  most  of  them  had  broken  down  in 
health,  and  had  been  obliged  to  abandon  the 
work. 

Nerved  by  the  ambition  to  be  accounted 
u  a  smart  girl,*'  and  with  the  incentive  of 
gain  before  her,  it  i£  easy  to  understand  how 
the  female  operative  will  attempt  a  degree  of 
effort  that  is  inevitably  "a  note  given  on 
time,"  to  be  paid  at  maturity,  at  an  usurious 
rate,  from  the  vital  forces  of  her  economy. 

"  It  would  seem  to  be  as  easy  to  goad  women,  as  it 
would  be  difficult  to  goad  men,  into  doing  the  greatest 
amount  of  piece-work  in  a  given  time.  The  admira- 
tion of  their  companions,  and  the  approbation  of  the 
overlooker,  appear  to  be  at  least  as  powerful  induce- 
ments as  the  increase  of  their  wages.  A  woman  who 
can  mind  four  looms  without  an  assistant  has  attained 
a  certain  position,  and  is  an  object  of  attention. 
'  Hoo's  a  four-loomer,  hoo's  like  to  be  wed/  will  be 
commonly  remarked  of  such  a  one."* 

*  Bridges  and  Holmes,  Op.  Cit.  p.  20.  I  am  glad  to 
believe  that  nowhere  in  this  country  does  the  wretched 


OBJECTIVE.  73 

In  the  special  processes  alluded  to,  "  draw- 
ing "  and  "  weaving,"  it  may  well  be  doubted 
if  a  labor,  which,  as  in  the  first,  requires  the 
constant  removal  of  the  cans  (or  boxes)  to 
and  from  the  machines,  weighing  when  full 
from  sixteen  to  eighteen  pounds  (upward  of 
nine  hundred  cans  passing  through  the  hands 
of  each  female  in  a  day),  is  not  a  species 
of  overwork  in  itself,  that,  so  continuously 
plied,  must  result  in  injury.  In  "  weaving  " 
and  in  "  spinning"  both,  it  has  been  a  com- 
mon mistake  to  employ  girls  whose  ages 
could  but  be  associated  with  sexual  insecurity 
that  should  of  itself  class  this  employment 
for  them  as  overwork. 

"  Where  labor  is  also  prejudicial,"  says  Dr. 
Baker,*  of  Leeds,  "there  needs  not  miasm, 
and  want  of  ventilation,  to  accelerate  its  con- 

and  abusive  custom  exist  of  determining  the  pay  of  the 
"overlooker,"  or  foreman,  of  a  room  by  the  earnings  of 
those  under  him,  — a  system  which,  wherever  practised,  is 
accompanied  by  the  most  brutal  goading  to  over-labor, 
productive  beyond  escape  of  a  host  of  evils  to  health. 

*  Report  on  Leeds,  in  Reports  on  Sanitary  Condition 
of  Laborers,  Population  England  and  Wales,  1842. 
7 


74  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

sequences ;  and  there  is  no  doubt  but  that 
atmospheric  influences  have  a  preponderating 
effect  on  many  occupations :  tliey  germinate 
and  ripen  the  seed  which  labor  has  sown." 

Judge  Cowley  bears  testimony  that  "  the 
special  diseases  incident  to  factory  life  are 
lung  diseases  and  'female  debility.' ' 

Dr.  H.  Browne  of  Manchester,  Eng., 
states  that  "  diseases  of  the  digestive  and 
respiratory  mucous  membranes  are  not  quite 
twice  as  frequent  in  the  factory-workers  who 
attend  the  infirmary  as  out-patients,  as  in  the 
remaining  out-patients  of  all  classes  and  both 
sexes." 

The  Massachusetts  State  Board  of  Health 
has  undertaken  an  inquiry  into  the  mortality 
of  factory-operatives  within  their  jurisdiction. 
An  analysis  of  the  replies  received  by  this 
board*  to  its  queries  establishes  the  fact 
that  the  employes  of  cotton-factories  suffer  a 
disproportionate  death-rate.  The  registra- 


*  Second  Annual  Report  Massachusetts  State  Board  of 
Health,  p.  414. 


OBJECTIVE.  75 

tion  reports  of  Massachusetts  for  the  last 
nine  years  also  show,  that,  in  the  large  manu- 
facturing towns,  the  death-rate  from  diseases 
presumably  incident  to  such  employ  exceeds 
that  of  other  towns  of  similar  population. 
We  have,  therefore,  the  testimony  of  our  own 
and  foreign  observations,  to  the  existence 
of  results  which  we  have  come  to  recognize 
as  associated  with  special  causes,  more  espe- 
cially overwork  coupled  with  innutrition  and 
non-sanitary  surroundings. 

Notwithstanding  the  great  improvements 
which  the  past  few  years  have  made  in  cotton- 
machinery,  and  the  processes  of  labor  in 
cotton-factories,  the  following  comprehen- 
sive statement  of  a  German  writer  *  still  too 
correctly  depicts  the  effects  of  labor  in  the 
dust,  etc.,  of  such  factories. 

"  Soon  after  entrance  into  the  workshop,  the 
workman  perceives  it  (the  dust)  in  a  most  unpleas- 
ant way.  In  those  who  are  unaccustomed  to  it,  it- 
causes  continual  tickling  in  the  throat,  which  incites 

*  Dr.  Ludwig  von  Hirt :  Krankhirteu  der  Arbeiter, 
Breslau,  1871. 


76  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

hard  coughing  and  occasionally  whitish  expectoration. 
In  .the  first  year  of  work,  the  operative  suffers  con- 
stantly from  bronchial  catarrh;  and  a  considerable 
proportion  of  those  who  come  to  this  occupation  from 
rural  districts  abandon  it,  even  though  they  may  be 
only  sufferers  from  constant  catarrh,  without  other 
worse  symptoms. 

"  If,  however,  they  persevere  in  this  occupation, 
more  important  symptoms  supervene,  sometimes 
soon,  often  after  a  year  of  work,  such  as  cough  with 
pectoral  pain,  marked  anaemia,  obstinate  debility,  and 
loss  of  appetite.  White  viscid  sputa  is  now  expecto- 
rated with  difficulty,  and  shows  under  the  microscope 
cotton-fibres  for  several  hours  after  quitting  the  fac- 
tory. Marked  emaciation,  sometimes  —  but  rarely 
—  profuse  diarrhoea,  deprives  the  operator  of  his 
strength,  and  compels  him  to  leave  his  work,  and  be- 
take himself  to  his  home  or  to  the  hospital. 

"  These,  of  course,  are  the  most  unfavorable,  and 
happily  not    the  most  frequent  cases.     But  people 
very  often  go  on  coughing  their  whole  life  long,  and 
die  at 'an  advanced  age.  .  .  .   Sickly  people,  especial- 
ly those  liable  to  pulmonary  affections,  do  not  bear  up 
,  long.      The   most  unfavorable   cases   are   usually  found 
I  among  women;  and  in  a  factory  of  three  hundred  or 
four  hundred  operatives,  there  will  generally  be  found 
two  or  three  cases  of  this  kind  every  year.     Other 
diseases  of  not  infrequent  occurrence   are  phthisis, 


OBJECTIVE.  77 

acute  pneumonia,  and,  as  has  been  already  remarked, 
chronic  catarrh." 

The  processes  of  "  carding  "  and  "  strip- 
ping," even  since  the  introduction  of  Well- 
man's  patent  stripper,  etc.,  still  fill  the  air  with 
innumerable  particles  of  dust  which  pene- 
trate everywhere,  and,  in  some  mills,  in  a 
few  minutes  sufficiently  coat  a  smooth  plate 
of  metal  to  permit  the  finger  to  make  marks 
thereon ;  while  a  sunbeam  discloses  the  ex- 
tent to  which  the  atmosphere  breathed  by 
operatives  is  charged  with  the  foreign  sub- 
stances.* 

A  careful  inspection  of  a  very  large  num- 
ber of  factories  has  established  as  the  chief 
non-hygienic  conditions,  the  excess  of  fly- 
ing dust,  or  "  fluff;  "  the  extreme  heat  main- 
tained in  all  departments;  the  uncomfortable 
and  unhealthful  humidity,  particularly  of 

*  Dr.  Horatio  Bridge  of  New- York  City,  a  classmate, 
has  recently  published  an  admirable  translation  of  tlie 
work  of  Dr.  Gottlieb  Merkel  of  Nuremberg,  on  diseases 
caused  by  the  inhalation  of  dust.  Ne  w- York  Medical  Ilecord, 
1874. 

7* 


78  SEX  TN  INDUSTRY. 

the  weaving-rooms,  from  steam ;  the  special 
irritations  from  the  operation  of  "  stripping," 
and  perhaps,  to  some  extent,  from  that  of 
"  grinding;  "  the  irritation  and  noxious  influ- 
ence consequent  on  the  "  sizing  "  employed  ; 
and  the  specially  evil  effects  of  foul  privies. 

When  to  these  are  added  the  ills  that 
result  from  insufficient,  unfit,  and  hastily 
devoured  food,  and  wet  clothing,  from  the 
long  standing,  reaching,  and  lifting  (as  of 
heavy  beams),  and  the  depressing  tendencies 
of  the  monotony  and  unrelenting  exactions 
of  the  processes  themselves,  we  have  a  sum 
total  of  causes  quite  sufficient  to  wage  suc- 
cessful war  upon  the  general  health,  and  to 
break  down  and  overthrow  the  special  forces 
Nature  would  fain  establish  in  those  sub- 
jected to  these  repressing  agencies. 

Of  several  of  these  agencies  enumerated, 
the  English  commission  reported  last  year, 
to  Parliament,  as  follows  :  — 

"As  to  ventilation,  in  almost  all  cases  it  was  ex- 
tremely bad,  and  in  a  large  number  of  instances  there 
was  none  whatever.  .  .  .  The  heat  is  kept  up  by 


OBJECTIVE.  79 

steam-pipes,  and  obvious  motives  of  economy  dictate 
that  as  little  as  possible  of  it  shall  be  lost  by  open 
windows.  ...  In  most  of  the  spinning-rooms  there 
are  one  or  more  privies,  usually  of  very  rude  con- 
struction, and  almost  always  opening  directly  into  the 
room,  with  very  inadequate  apertures  to  the  outside 
air.  The  soil  falls  down  a  large  untrapped  pipe, 
which  is  flushed  often  or  seldom,  according  to  the 
varying  attention  given  it." 

This  is  a  picture  that  would  be  entirely 
correct  of  many  factories  to-day  in  this  Com- 
monwealth, though  I  am  glad  to  believe  that 
a  marked  improvement  in  these  regards  has 
characterized  nearly  all  larger  factories,  and 
some  of  the  smaller. 

Wherever  the  manifestly  injurious  influ- 
ences I  have  mentioned  are  present,  there 
cannot  fail  to  be  both  physical  and  mental 
impairment,  ill  suited  to  sustain  or  to  resist 
the  further  encroachments  of  the  demand 
made  by  certain  of  the  processes  of  factory 
labor  for  alert  co-operation  of  mind  and 
body. 

Exhibiting,  as  it  does,  so  great  a  variety 
and  grave  a  degree  of  devitalizing  power 


80  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

upon  woman,  in  its  concomitants  otherwise, 
it  is  fortunate  that  cotton-factory  labor 
necessitates  so  small  an  exercise,  as  it  does, 
of  the  expressly  untoward  influence  which 
arises  from  co-ordinate  energy  of  mind  and 
body. 

Whether  we  agree  with  Dr.  Seguin,  *  or 
not,  in  his  view  that  "  co-ordination  is  no  fac- 
ulty, but  a  function  of  every  portion  of  the 
motor  tract  of  the  spinal  axis  from  the  origin 
of  the  third  cerebral  nerve  down,"  it  is  cer- 
tain, that,  operating  between  mental  and 
physical  forces,  it  has  a  power  for  exhaustion 
not  found  in  the  fullest  exercise  of  either 
alone. 

In  cotton-manufacture,  it  is  only  in  the 
routine  work  of  attendance  on  machinery 
which  requires  the  exact  adaptation  of  mind 
and  hand  at  precise  times,  that  this  coeval 
demand  upon  thought  and  its  executing 
power  is  made  ;  and  here  the  speed  is  rarely 
such,  or  the  concentration  so  absorbing,  as  to 

*  An  Outline  of  the  Physiology  of  the  Nervous  System : 
E.  C.  Seguin,  M.D.  N.  Y.  Medical  Kecord,  Dec.  1,  1874. 


OBJECTIVE.  81 

prevent  some  degree  of  unconscious  or 
"  mechanical "  response  and  restful  inatten- 
tion. 

The  numerous  causes  proyocative  of  pul- 
monary disease,  which  have  been  cited  as 
existing  in  factory  labor,  leave  no  room  for 
doubt,  that  the  destruction  of  menstrual 
power,  which  so  certainly  supervenes  on  the 
development  of  phthisis,  may  readily  receive 
its  origin  here ;  while  it  is  equally  evident 
that  these  causes,  if  co-operating  with  those 
acting  directly  upon  the  function  itself,  can 
but  hasten  the  result  it  should  be  the  aim 
of  the  employer  and  the  legislator  alike  to 
avert. 

A  searching  analysis  of  the  "  examination 
notes"  of  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  mills 
in  the  Commonwealth  shows  to  have  been 
specially  noticeable  for  wretched  ventilation, 
sixty  ;  while  there  were  "  noted"  as  observ- 
able for  overheated  rooms  (particularly 
weave-rooms),  thirteen ;  dusty  and  exceed- 
ingly dirty  condition,  fifteen  (from  "  size  " 
one)  ;  bad  condition  of  privies,  nearly  all ; 


82  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

employment     of     girls    under     ten     years, 
eight.* 

I  pass  now  to  the  consideration  of  several 
employments,  in  none  of  which  purely  mus- 
cular overtaxing  occurs,  and  in  which  the 
innutrition  and  numerous  non-hygienic  influ- 
ences inherent  in  mill-life  are  principally 
absent,  but  in  which  the  most  potent  of 
causes  of  sexual  derangement,  simultaneous 
activity  and  concentration  of  mind  and  body, 
is  noticeably  present.  It  is  observable, 
moreover,  that,  in  these,  the  distinctive  fea- ' 
ture  of  the  corresponding  activity  in  factory 
labor,  viz.,  monotony  and  its  depression,  is 
lacking ;  and  inasmuch  as,  despite  these  ad- 
vantages, it  is  found,  that,  as  a  whole,  this 
order  of  labor  is  far  more  rapidly  and  cer- 
tainly destructive  of  the,  normal  balance  of 
the  sexual  principle  in  women,  we  must  con- 


*  The  United-States  census  of  1870  gives  as  the  total 
number  of  girls  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  fifteen 
employed  in  the  industries  of  Massachusetts,  0,299;  the 
larger  proportion  of  whom  are,  beyond  doubt,  subject  to 
the  evils  here  enumerated. 


OBJECTIVE.  83 

elude,  that  in  the  greater  rapidity  of  effort,  | 
physical  and  mental,  involved;  in  the  great/ 
increase  of  concentration  required ;  and  in  the 
contemporary  exercise  of  the  forces  brought 
into  play,  —  the  exceeding  deterioration  must 
reside. 

It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  observe  that  the 
class  of  females  engaging  in  these  occupations 
—  all  of  which  require  a  higher  degree  of 
intelligence  than  most  mill-work  —  is  of  a 
more  highly-organized  character ;  and,  as 
being  of  more  sensitive  fibre,  might  ration- 
ally be  expected  to  sooner  exhibit  the  results 
of  the  attrition  and  wear  incident  to  these 
pursuits. 

TYPE-SETTING. 

The  setting  of  types,  the  labor  of  the 
"  compositor,"  as  this  servant  of  the  public 
is  called,  holds  a  peculiar  position  in  the 
class  of  physico-mental  activities  from  the 
facts  that  the  employment  — 

May  become  partially  unconscious  or 
"  mechanical "  labor  ; 


84  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

Is  supposed  to  possess  certain  dangers  of 
poisoning  from  the  nature  of  the  metal  com- 
posing the  types;  and  — 

Has  in  the  postures  necessary,  its  sedentary 
character,  and  the  heat  at  which  "  composing- 
rooms  "  are  unavoidably  kept,  its  particular 
non-hygienic  conditions. 

It  will  readily  be  seen,  that  a  closely  at- 
tentive activity  must  be  exercised  to  "  follow 
copy,"  and  accomplish  a  paying  amount  of 
work  with  sufficient  correctness  to  satisfy  em- 
ployers. There  can,  of  course,  in  this  labor, 
be  no  distracting  influences ;  for  to  "  set " 
type  with  a  remunerative  degree  of  rapidity 
and  correctness  (and  most  type-setters  are 
'required  to  "correct"  their  own  "proofs," 
or  errors),  the  eye  must  take  in  the  words 
of  the  copy,  and  their  relations  to  each  other, 
their  punctuation  and  character  (whether 
Italics  or  other  type),  and  various  other 
details  known  only  to  the  guild ;  must  trans- 
mit the  intelligence  absorbed  by  the  eye  to 
the  hand,  and  direct  it  with  celerity  to  that 
particular  one  of  the  compartments  in  a  type 


OBJECTIVE.  85 

"  case  "  which  contains  the  particular  type 
called  for,  and  deftly  arrange  it  "  wrong-end 
first "  in  the  proper  relation  to  its  fellows 
contained  in  the  "  composing-stick."  To  read 
the  copy  (often  most  illegible)  ;  to  supply  or 
correct  punctuation;  to  determine  the  type, 
"spaces,"  " leads/'  etc.;  to  observe  the  in- 
tended sense  of  the  writer ;  to  separate  sticky 
type,  "keep  them  on  their  feet,"  place  them 
correctly,  duly  "spaced"  and  "leaded,"  as 
well  as  punctuated ;  keep  the  place  in  the 
copy ;  and  do  all  these  quickly,  sometimes 
with  cold  hands,  and  with  various  inter  rap- 
tions,  —  it  is  obvious,  is  an  employment  that 
is  most  exacting  of  mental  concentration  and 
manipulative  rapidity.  A  good  female  com- 
positor can  "  set "  and  correct  thirty  thou- 
sand ems  per  week,  for  which  she  would 
receive  thirty  cents  per  thousand,  although 
many  are  employed  at  a  set  sum  per  week, 
rarely  exceeding  ten  dollars ;  and  at  this 
rate  she  would  be  expected  to  be  able  to  set 
nearly  six  thousand  ems  per  day,  to  accom- 
plish which  it  will  be  seen  that  there  must 


86  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

be   constant  labor    of    a   very  rapid    char- 
acter. 

As  an  offset,  however,  we  have  the  fact, 
that  a  considerable  portion  of  the  work  be- 
comes mechanical,  a  skilled  compositor  know- 
ing, without  looking,  exactly  where  in  her 
case  to  find  the  type  wanted ;  while  the 
placing  it  in  position  in  the  composing-stick 
correctly  is  accomplished  by  the  aid  of  another 
of  those  marvellous  processes  of  mental 
telegraphy  with  which  our  daily  actions  are 
replete.  The  type  has  upon  one  side  a  series 
of  "  nicks,"  which  being  felt  by  the  finger, 
the  brain  is  informed,  and,  without  the  inter- 
vention of  the  eye,  the  type  is  turned  to  the 
correct  position,  and  set  by  the  re-instructed 
finger.  The  wrong-end-first  position  of  the 
type  is,  moreover,  no  impediment  to  the 
compositor,  who  reads  "  backwards"  and 
"  upside-down  "  as  well  as  other  people  regu- 
larly read  from  left  to  right.  Hence  it  is  to 
be  considered,  that,  although  an  employment 
of  distinctly  co-operative  physico-mental  ac- 
tivity, it  is  lessened  in  degree  as  such  by  the 


OBJECTIVE.  87 

facility  with  which  its  processes,  in  part, 
become  mechanical.  It  is  a  question  not 
readily  determined,  whether  or  not  the  per- 
nicious effects  of  the  depressing  powers  of 
lead  and  antimonial  poisoning  (where  they 
are  operative),  and  of  the  heat  and  unhealthy 
postures  mentioned,  are  the  equivalents  of 
the  gain  derived  to  the  compositor  by  her 
power  of  making  the  work  partially  mechan- 
ical ;  and  so  advantage  and  disadvantage  bal- 
ance each  other,  and  leave  the  employment 
a  pure  type  of  its  class.  An  exceedingly 
interesting  feature  of  type-setting  is  the  fact, 
that  it  is  understood,  by  first-class  composi- 
tors, that  the  element  of  memory  enters 
largely  into,  in  fact  becomes  a  governing 
power  in,  the  occupation,  thereby  changing 
the  direction  and  character  of  the  mental 
concentration.  Having  read  her  copy,  it  is 
asserted  that  the  compositor,  if  of  good 
memory,  retains  the  sentence  read,  in  mind, 
follows  copy  no  more  till  a  fresh  sentence  is 
needed,  and  then  concentrates  all  thought 
upon  retaining  the  sentence  and  the  point 


88  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

in  it,  to  which  work  has  progressed,  leaving 
the  eye  free  to  go  with  the  hand  to  the  case, 
aiding  the  correctness  and  celerity  of  the 
latter.  It  is  plain,  that,  if  such  is  the 
mental  process,  the  greater  the  retentive 
power  of  memory  (largely,  of  course,  a 
matter  of  training),  the  more  freely  and  rap- 
idly the  work  may  go  on,  the  true  concentra- 
tion being  upon  the  two  points  mentioned ; 
viz.,  the  general  retention  of  the  sentence, 
and  the  place  reached  therein  by  the  com- 
positor. 

It  is  proper  to  note,  moreover,  in  this  con- 
nection, that  a  compositor  who  is  quick  of 
perception,  and  is  skilled  in  grammatical 
construction,  punctuation,  etc.,  is  able  to 
perform  her  work  with  much  less  fatigue 
than  one  of  slower  comprehension  and  less 
accomplishment.  Finding  that  the  fore- 
going views,  as  to  the  part  played  by  mem- 
ory, and  the  degree  of  skill  in  perception, 
grammar,  etc.,  wrere  fully  recognized,  it 
became  a  matter  of  much  interest  to  confirm 
them  by  actual  experiment  and  inquiry.  A 


OBJECTIVE.  89 

well-established  case  was  found  to  be  famil- 
iar to  the  older  compositors,  of  a  compositor 
who  had  been  an  "  expert,"  becoming  totally 
blind,  but  continuing  his  work  by  having  a 
boy  to  read  long  extracts  of  his  copy  to  him, 
his  cultivated  powers  of  retention  being 
remarkable  ;  and  it  was  found  that  his  proofs 
were,  in  the  main,  as  correct  as  those  of  his 
fellows.  Desirous  of  determining  the  real 
force  of  this  claim,  a  lady  compositor  was 
carefully  blindfolded ;  and,  the  copy  being 
read  to  her,  it  was  found  that  the  work  could 
undoubtedly  be  thus  performed,  though  with 
not  quite  the  same  correctness  as  ordinarily, 
but  more  rapidly,  and  resulting  in  greater 
fatigue.  The  statement  of  the  operator  was 
to  the  effect,  that  her  whole  concentration  of 
mind  was  upon  the  two  points  already  men- 
tioned,—  the  retention  of  the  copy,  and  her 
place  in  it ;  and  this  concentration  she  con- 
sidered quite  equivalent  in  demand  to  that 
required  by  the  slower  process  of  setting 
with  the  eyes  open,  stating  that  she  missed 
the  aid  in  keeping  the  place,  obtained  by  the 

8* 


90  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

hurried  glance  upon  the  state  of  progress  in 
the  composing-stick.  Whatever  ameliorating 
circumstances  it  may  possess,  in  any  or  all 
of  the  ways  mentioned,  it  is  evident  that, 
type-setting  is  an  employ  exacting  an  un- 
usual degree  of  mental  concentration  and 
energy,  with,  great  rapidity  of  manipulation ; 
and,  as  such,  if  previous  hypotheses  have 
been  correct,  cannot  fail  to  have  a  markeiL 
effect  jipsaLJthaJifialtk^  opera- 

tives. Let  us  see  how  these  hypotheses  are 
borne  out  by  the  facts,  as  variously  obtained. 

Mr.  M ,  brought   up   in   the   business 

from  a  boy,  now  engaged  in  it  for  eighteen 
years,  having  worked  in  offices  with  female 
compositors  ranging  from  one  to  twenty  in 
number,  and  including  from  two  to  three 
hundred  in  his  observation,  states,  — 

' '  Few  girls  can  continuously  set  more  than  five 
thousand  ems  per  day,  while  men  will  set  from  seven 
to  eight  thousand  ;  not  because  the  girl  is  not  quicker 
in  movement  and  perception,  for  she  is,  but  because 
she  cannot  '  stand  it,'  —  she  is  not  strong  enough.  It 
seems  to  be  the  back  that  gives  out.  Girls  cannot 


OBJECTIVE.  91 

work  more  than  eight  hours,  and  keep  it  up  :  they 
know  it,  and  they  rarely  will  ;  and  even  this  seems  to 
1  pull  them  down,'  so  that  it  is  extremely  rare  that  a 
girl  continues  more  than  a  few  years  at  the  business." 

Mr.  B ,  foreman   of    a   large   printing 

establishment,  says, — 

"  Girls  must  sit  at  the  *  case.'     I  never  knew  but 
one  woman,  and  she  a  strong,  vigorous  Irishwoman 
of  unusual  height,  who  could  stand  at  the  case  like  a  • 
man.     Female  compositors,  as  a  rule,  are  sickly,  suf-   j 
fering  much  from  backache,  headache,  weak  limbs,  / 
and  general  *  female  weakness.'  ' 

Mr.  D ,  the  publisher  of  a  well-known 

periodical,  says,  — - 

'*  I  have  had  hundreds  of  lady  compositors  in  my 
employ  ;  and  they  all  exhibited  in  a  marked  manner, 
both  in  the  way  they  performed  their  work  and  in  its 
results,  the  difference  in  physical  ability  between 
themselves  and  men.  They  cannot  endure  the  pro- 
longed close  attention  and  confinement  which  is  a  great 
part  of  type-setting.  I  have  few  girls  with  me  more 
than  two  or  three  years  at  a  time  ;  they  must  have 
vacations,  and  they  break  down  in  health  rapidly.  I 
know  no  reason  why  a  girl  could  not  set  as  much  type 
as  a  man,  if  she  were  as  strong  to  endure  the  demand 
on  mind  and  body." 


92  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

Miss  J ,  a  lady  compositor,  says,  — 

"We  cannot  stand  at  the  *  case.'  It  increases 
back  and  head  ache,  and  weakness  of  limbs,  as  well 
as  a  dragging  weight  about  the  hips.  I  have  been  at 
this  work  five  years,  but  have  been  frequently  obliged 
to  give  up  for  vacations,  from  peculiar  troubles  and 
general  debility.  I  began  to  menstruate  when  four- 
teen  ;  I  am  now  twenty-two.  I  was  well  until  I  had 
set  type  a  year,  when  I  began  to  be  troubled  with 
difficult  periods,  and  have  been,  more  or  less,  ever 
since.  When  I  go  away,  I  get  better  ;  but,  as  often 
as  I  return  to  my  work,  I  am  troubled  again.  Have 
wholly  lost  color,  and  am  not  nearly  as  fleshy  and 
heavy  as  when  I  began  work.  I  have  now  a  good 
deal  of  pain  in  my  chest,  and  some  cough,  which 
increases  if  I  work  harder  than  usual.  I  am  well 
acquainted  with  many  other  lady  compositors  who 
suffer  as  I  do." 

Miss  S ,  a  lady  long  in  charge  of  the 

"  composing-room  "  (female  department)  of 
a  large  printing  establishment,  testifies,  — 

' '  I  was  myself  a  compositor,  and  have  had  scores 
of  girls  under  me  and  with  me,  many  of  whom  I  have 
known  intimately.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that  I  think  I  never  knew  a  dozen  lady  compositors 
who  were  '  well. '  Their  principal  troubles  are  those 


OBJECTIVE.  93 

belonging  to  the  sex,  and  great  pain  in  back,  limbs, 
and  head.  Most  of  those  I  have  known  have  preferred 
going  into  other  employments  than  to  continue  in  the 
business.  Many  seem  to  recover  fully  after  leaving 
the  business ;  but  I  have  known  several  who  have 
sickened  and  died  of  ;  consumption/  and  some  are 
always  troubled  with  l  female  complaints.'  I  know  a 
number  who  have  married,  and  have  children,  most 
of  them  seemingly  bright  and  healthy.  Girls  can^ 
not  stand  at  the  case  like  men,  and  ought  not  to  try  to_ 
work,  if  it  can  be  liplpp.fl,  *4  f»p.rf.n.in  pp.rinfls.  I  think 
the  heat  and  ill- ventilation  of  our  rooms  is  bad  for  us 
all." 

Dr.  G ,  a  physician  in  one  of  the  sub- 
urbs of  Boston,  gives  his  evidence  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

li  I  have  had  several  cases  of  menorrhagia  (profuse 
menstruation),  a  few  of  retarded  or  difficult  menstru- 
ation, and  a  single  case  of  type-poisoning,  in  female 
compositors.  They  all  tell  me  that  the  work  produces 
backache  dud  headache,  with  more  or  less  trouble 
periodically.  The  case  of  poison  was  an  interesting 
one,  and  proved  itself  such  conclusively.  As  often 
as  the  girl  would  leave  her  work  for  a  time,  her  un- 
favorable symptoms  would  entirely  remove  :  just  as 
soon  as  she  took  up  the  types  again,  the  trouble  was 


94  8£X  IN  INDUSTRY. 

renewed.  It  is  an  employment  requiring  so  close 
confinement,  and  such  careful  attention,  that  I  am  at 
no  loss  to  understand  its  effects." 

Mr.  H ,  an  employe  of  the  govern- 
ment printing  office  at  Washington,  informs 
us,  — 

"  I  have  known  a  good  many  of  our  girls  in  the 
composing-rooms  here  in  the  city;  and  quite  a  number 
that  I  have  known  have  come  here  into  the  work 
strong  and  healthy-looking  girls,  and  have  gone  away 
in  a  few  years,  pale,  thin,  and.  sick.  I  know,  from 
conversation  with  some  of^thein^Jjhat  the  work  upsets 
them  jas  women,  and  they  cannot  continue  the  work 
long  without  suffering.  I  should  say,  that  perhaps 
their  pleasure-seeking  after  work  —  as  balls,  parties, 
etc.  —  has  a  bad  effect  too ;  but  all  do  not  follow  that 
course." 

Dr.  B ,  a  physician  to  dispensary  pa- 
tients, says,  — 

"  I  have  seen  quite  a  number  of  female  type-set- 
ters who  were  suffering  from  uterine  troubles  and  dis- 
turbed menstrual  conditions.  I  think  that  these,  with 
obstinate  constipation,  and  occasional  cystitis  (inflam- 
mation of  bladder),  are  their  chief  troubles,  beside 


OBJECTIVE.  95 

the  ever-present  l  headache.'  Mind  and  body  are  | 
compelled  to  act  so'  quickly  in  that  work,  that  I  am  j 
not  surprised  at  nervous  effects,  particularly  in  young  j 
women  not  fully  developed." 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing,  that 
the  female  compositors  themselves,  their 
employers  and  associates,  those  who  superin- 
tend them,  and  their  physicians,  all  agree  to 
the  effects  of  the  labor,  and  the  latter  recog- 
nize the  cause.  Although  subject  to  modify- 
ing, and  to  a  certain  degree  puzzling,  cir- 
cumstances, there  can,  apparently,  be  no 
doubt  of  th^relatioii  existing  between  type- 
setting, as  an  employment  possessing  the 
physico-mental  draft,  and  the  conditions  ' 
found  to  exist  in ..tko.s^devoted_toLifc*.  Count- 
ing it,  therefore,  as  an 


upon  t.hft  pp.o.n1in,r.^uiiction  of  W0_- 
maiij_and  leaving  our  suggestions  concerning 
it  to  a  further  consideration,  we  pass  to  the 
review  of  an  occupation  still  more  closely  a 
type  of  concentrated  mental  and  physical 
co-operation. 


96  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

TELEGRAPHY. 

Those  at  all  familiar  with,  the  demands 
upon  the  nervous  energy  and  manipulative 
dexterity  required  by  the  processes  of  teleg- 
raphy will  not  be  surprised  that  the  rapid- 
ity, readiness  of  perception  and  response, 
sensitiveness  to  "  time,"  close  attention  to 
the  "  delivery  "  of  the  instrument,  manual 
celerity,  and  often  simultaneous  action  in 
"  receiving,"  counting,  writing,  and  "  check- 
ing," are  found  to  exert  upon  the  general 
and  special  health  of  the  youthful  J^  lady 

.._. xr__..  ,  ,  — —  "•*  '     ••• — *  «/ 

operator  "  almost  positiyejind  rapidly  injxiri- 
jp>us_effect.  That  it  has  not  more  widely 
attained  a  reputation  as  a  "  non-salubrious  " 
employ,  is  due  to  the  facts,  that  those  en- 
gaged in  its  most  responsible,  and  therefore 
most  hurtful  positions,  are  with  very  rare 
exceptions  safely  past  the  forming  period, 
—  are  confirmed  in  their  possession  of  wo- 
manly attributes;  and  those  of  impressible 
years  are  usually  employed  in  "  branch 
offices, "  etc.,  places  that  do  not  exact  that 
continuity  or  concentration  in  their  work 


OBJECTIVE.  97 

that  main  offices,  etc.,  must  have.  These 
being  the  facts,  it  is  doubly  interesting  to 
find,  that,  so  purely  is  the  occupation  one 
of  the  physico-mental  activity  type,  that 
though  in  the  one  case  the  labor  is  inter- 
mittent, and  permissive  of  rest,  and  in  the 
other  the  operator  has  passed  the  climacteric, 
the  demands  for  concentration  and  co-opera- 
tive alertness  are  so  great,  that  both  suffer  in 
health  in  a  marked  and  universally  recog- 
nized manner.  It  is  but  fair  that  the  con- 
strained posture,  sedentary  habit,  obstinate 
and  confirmed  constipation,  and  over-heat  of 
the  rooms,  which  very  generally  affect  the 
operator,  should  be  given  due  place  in  the 
causative  effects  of  this  recognized  disturb- 
ance of  health  ;  but  to  the  character  of  the 
work  itself  is  the  great  proportion  of  the 
result  due. 

While,  therefore,  this  particular  avenue  of 
employ  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  one  of  those 
affecting,  to  a  wide  extent,  the  peculiar  sexual 
function  in  forming  girls,  from  the  fact  that 
comparatively  few  such  are  employed  therein, 


98  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

it  is  of  great  interest,  as  establishing  in  a 
marked  manner  the  soundness  of  the  princi- 
ple put  forth,  that,  from  a  rapid  exercise  of 
concentrated  mental  and  ph}rsical  energy, 
there  occurs  the  most  emphatic  effect  upon 
the  function  in  consideration.  Wherever 
young  girls  are  called  upon  to  engage  in  the 
full  requirements  of  a  busy  office,  or  experi- 
ence a  sudden  increase  of  labor  and  re- 
sponsibility, the  effect  on  the  economy  is 
immediately  apparent,  and  especially  in  the 
direction  of  the  menstrual  result,  if  contem- 
poraneous. 

"  It  is  the  common  thing,"  says  the  super- 
intendent of  a  line,  "for  young  beginners, 
those  prpmoted  to  larger  offices,  and  those 
placed  suddenly  upon  responsible  posts,  to 
suffer  a  degree  of  physical  prostration  imme- 
diately thereafter ;  and  I  have  noticed  this 
to  be  proportionate  to  the  age  and  nervous 
habit  of  the  individual."  Numerous  inqui- 
ries of  operators,  in  a  score  of  offices,  have 
produced  the  unvarying  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, "  How  long  can  you  stand  this  employ 


OBJECTIVE.  99 

in  a  busy  office  ?  "  —  "  Not  over  a  year,  with- 
out a  good  vacation  of  at  least  a  month." 
Indeed,  that  this  is  so,  the  managers  of  the 
principal  lines  seem  to  recognize,  inasmuch 
as  a  month's  vacation  is  allowed  their  "  oper- 
ators "  in  each  year  ;  though  it  is  to  be  greatly 
regretted,  that,  even  for  sickness,  they  will 
make  no  further  allowance,  compelling  the 
operator  to  resign  if  even  a  day  or  two  more, 
however  imperatively  demanded  by  illness, 
is  taken. 

On  being  interrogated  as  to  the  special 
causes  and  effects  of  prostration  in  telegraph- 
offices,  the  first  reply  of  nearly  all  young 
u  lady  operators,"  perhaps  not  unnaturally, 
is  to  the  effect,  that  the  close  confinement, 
over-heat  of  rooms,  and  position,  are  princi- 
pally operative  ;  but  more  direct  inquiry, 
calling  out  the  more  active  and  self-examin- 
ing thought,  invariably  produces  the  reply, 

that  the  "  nervous  debility," 

•"—  * 


hot  head^land  dizzy  headache,  make  up  a 
good  part  of  the  results  ;  while  particular 
inquiry,  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases,  estab- 


100  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

lishes  the  fact,  always,  in  the  larger  offices, 
that  menstruation  occurs  more  frequently 
than  it  ought. 

When  it  is  known,  that,  in  the  average 
business  of  a  large  city  office,  a  "  lady  opera- 
tor "  often  receives  a  string  of  messages  with 
the  ear,  writes  them  as  they  come  with  her 
right  hand,  counts  them  with  her  eye,  checks 
them  with  her  left  hand,  and  answers  her 
"  O.  K."  to  the  sender,  it  will  be  readily 
understood  that  the  interplay  of  nervous 
influences  must  be  of  the  most  rapid  and  ex- 
haustive character  ;  because,  however  expert 
the  operator  may  become,  she  can  never  be- 
come purely  automatic :  mental  concentration 
must  be  drawn  upon  to  the  full.  A  "  lady 
operator,"  many  years  in  the  business,  said 
to  me, — 

"I  have  broken  down  several  times,  completely 
worn  out,  suffering  from  sheer  nervous  debility.  I 
had  '  turned  of  age '  safely,  and  was  well  in  this  and 
every  other  particular  when  I  entered  the  office  :  since 
I  broke  down  the  first  time,  I  have  never  been 
4  right,'  though  much  improved  when  out  on  my  va- 


OBJECTIVE.  1-01 

cations.  I  could  not  have  continued  as  long  as  I 
have,  if  it  had  not  been  that  I  have  been  changed 
about  in  small  offices,  and  have  been  part  of  the  time 
in  charge  of  rooms." 

Another  said,  — 

"  Our  girls  all  come  to  us  looking  bright,  fresh, 
and  ruddy  ;  but  it  is  not  long  before  they  lose  color, 
and  strength  seems  to  go  with  it.  While  I  think  it 
a  nice  occupation,  and  better  than  standing  in  stores 
or  working  in  mills,  it  would  be  much  better  if  vaca- 
tions could  be  better  arranged,  and  the  confinement 
lessened. " 

Miss ,  for  several  years  in    charge  of 

the  female  department  of  one  of  the  largest 
offices  in  the  country,  testified,  — 

"One  year  is  as  long  as  one  can  work  in  a  busy  office 
without  a  good  vacation.  The  confined  position,  con- 
stipation, heat,  and  dizzy  headache,  I  think,  are  the 
most  noticeable  troubles  of  '  lady  operators  '  who  are 
4  grown  up. '  The  hours  are  too  long  for  such  strained 
employment.  From  eight,  A.M.  ,  to  six,  P.M.  ,  with  only 
an  hour  for  dinner,  makes  too  long  a  day  for  the  kind 
of  work.  I  am  sorry  to  say  some  of  our  girls  eat 
their  lunch  in  the  room,  not  going  out  at  all.  A  wo- 
9* 


&t  IN   INDUSTRY. 

man  can  do  as  much  as  a  man  in  this  business,  and 
do  it  as  well,  but  does  not  get  the  same  pay  for  it.  ^A 
skilful  '  lady  operator^  here  'will  sometimes  have 
from  two  hundred  to  two  hundred  and  thirty  mes- 
sages a  day  ;  but  she  could  not  stand  that  rate  more  than  a 
month.  Most  of  our  chief-office  '  lady  operators  '  are 
from  twenty- three  to  twenty-four  years  old :  our  young- 
est is  twenty-three.  They  generally  begin  to  learn 
from  sixteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  the  young- 
est, of  course,  feel  it  most.  I  think,  that,  with  those  of 
our  age,  the  chief  menstrual  trouble  is  with  its  occur- 
ring too  often." 

An  inquiry  of  those  among  female  opera- 
tors who  more  properly  came  within  the 
designation  of  "forming"  has  developed 
some  curious  and  interesting  results. 

Miss  C.,  a  "lady  operator  "  nineteen  years 
of  age,  located  at  an  office  in  a  quiet  town 
on  one  of  our  railroad  lilies,  owing  to  an 
accident  on  the  line,  had  her  office  suddenly 
besieged  for  an  entire  day  and  into  the  night, 
by  an  unprecedented  business,  taxing  her  to 
the  utmost.  It  occurred  just  at  a  "  peculiar 
period :  "  a  complete  suppression  resulted,  and 
a  general  prostration  ensued,  from  which 


OBJECTIVE.  103 

she  has  slowly  and  imperfectly,  as  yet,  re- 
covered. 

On  "election  night"  the  demand  upon 
operators  is,  of  course,  unusually  heavy ;  and 
several  of  the  female  operators  at  large  cen- 
tres state,  that,  for  some  days  after,  their 
sense  of  debility  is  great.  In  two  cases  the 
periodicity  was  notably  disturbed  by  this  or 
any  other  unusual  requirement  of  the  work, 
just  previous  to  the  time  of  normal  recurrence. 

It  not  infrequently  happens  that  sickness 
of  an  operator,  or  other  contingency,  requires 
the  transfer  of  a  young  operator  from  her 
usual  post  to  one  of  greater  responsibility 
and  more  exacting  duties ;  and  in  such  cases 
the  operators  are  quite  liable  to  find  that  a 
considerable  disturbance  of  their  periodical 
function  occurs.  Whenever  a  young  opera- 
tor is  transferred  to  one  of  the  chief  offices, 
especially  if  a  person  of  nervous  tempera- 
ment, the  increased  responsibility  and  ner- 
vous agitation  (unless  a  person  of  unusual 
confidence  and  poise)  will  not  infrequently 
occasion  a  disturbance  of  this  character  more 


104  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

or  less  prolonged.  The  weight  of  evidence 
would  seem  to  indicate,  that,  with  those  of 
the  "  forming-period,"  the  result  of  such  in- 
fluences is  to  repress  and  retard  ;  while,  with 
those  of  maturer  years,  it  is  to  render  more 
frequent  and  profuse.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  it  is  not  readily  possible  to  more  com- 
pletely separate  the  other  deleterious  influ- 
ences, as  posture,  confinement,  etc.,  from  the 
distinct  operation  of  the  physico-mental  con- 
centration and  activity.  A  review,  however, 
of  the  foregoing,  indicates  conclusively 
that,  — 

Though  the  extent  of  the  employ  of 
"  forming  "  girls  is  not  wide,  wherever  occur- 
ring, the  results  are  those  declared,  and  are 
exactly  such  as  we  should  expect  from  the 
class  of  influence  at  work ; 

That  this  type  of  influence  exerts  its  spe- 
cific effects,  even  upon  those  more  advanced 
in  years  ;  and,  — 

Its  results  are  more  quickly  realized  th/in 
those  of  any  other  influences  tending  toward 
the  same  channel  of  ill  health. 


OBJECTIVE.  105 

BASKET-MAKING. 

An  observation  of  females,  varying  in  age 
from  sixteen  to  forty,  engaged  in  basket-mak- 
ing, —  a  labor  requiring  wonderful  rapidity 
of  manipulation,  —  showed,  that,  in  half  a 
dozen  new  operatives  placed  upon  the  work 
in  a  well-ventilated,  light,  and  cheerful 
room,  — 

1.  Five  lost  in  weight  in  the  first  week 
appreciably ;  the  remaining  one,  a  slower  per- 
son, apparently  not  at  all. 

2.  The  youngest  lost  the  largest  per  cent 
of  weight. 

3".  Two,  one  sixteen  and  another  eighteen, 
experienced  disturbance  of  the  menstrual 
function  in  the  first  month  of  employ,  though 
previously  regular. 

4.  The  slow  person  began  to  lose  weight 
appreciably  on  the  fourth  week,  when    her 
motions  had  quickened. 

5.  The  decrease  in  weight  continued  with 
all  (though  there  was  no  diminution  of  appe- 
tite or  general  health  specially  noticeable) 
for  from  four  to  six  weeks ;  when,  the  move- 


106  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

merits  of  the  digits  having  become  more 
mechanical,  it  ceased,  and  the  weight  re- 
mained essentially  unchanged  for  a  few  weeks, 
varying  with  individuals,  from  one  to  three, 
when  in  four  of  the  six  it  increased  percepti- 
bly, in  the  other  two  slightly.  The  operatives 
of  this  department  state,  that  a  change  in  the 
shape  of  their  work,  requiring  for  a  time 
more  concentrated  thought,  will,  if  it  occur 
at  that  juncture,  effect  sometimes  a  disturb- 
ance of  the  catamenial  function.  In  all, 
familiarity  with  the  work  tends  to  remove 
the  difficulty. 

THE  COUNTING  OF  MONEY,   ETC. 

The  continuous  counting  of  money  or  cer- 
tain other  articles,  conducted  as  a  regular  em- 
ployment, presents,  perhaps,  the  purest  type 
of  manipulative  celerity,  co-operative  with 
extreme  mental  concentration,  known  to  in- 
vestigators. It  has,  moreover,  the  especial 
characteristic  that  only  to  a  very  slight 
degree,  if  at  all,  can  it  be  made  "  mechani- 
cal." It  cannot  be  performed  unconsciously, 


OBJECTIVE.  107 

but    demands   constant   vigilance   and   alert 
digital  reciprocity. 

Satisfied  that  a  pursuit  so  entirely  repre- 
senting extreme  mental  concentration,  with 
most  rapid  physical  manipulation,  could  not 
fail  of  producing  a  marked  effect  upon  such 
girls  of  " forming"  age  as  should  be  employed 
therein,  inquiry  was  made  at  the  United 
States  Treasury  at  Washington,  in  the 
" counting  department"  of  which  some 
thirty  ladies  are  constantly  employed  in 
counting  "  currency."  This  counting  is  of 
pieces  of  one  denomination  at  a  time  only ; 
i.e.,  a  person  counting  "  tens  "  counts  tens 
only  for  the  time  being ;  and  one  upon 
"  fifties  "  handles  only  pieces  of  that  designa- 
tion :  hence  the  pieces,  and  not  the  amount, 
are  counted,  the  number  of  pieces  multi- 
plied by  the  denomination,  of  course,  giving 
the  result  in  dollars  and  cents.  The  skill 
acquired  in  this  department  is  truly  wonder- 
ful, some  of  those  employed  counting  millions 
of  pieces  per  year.  Let  any  one  take  a  few 
hundred  pieces  of  currency,  and  attempt  to 


108  SEX  JN  INDUSTRY. 

count  them  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  it  will 
be  found  that  not  only  is  the  manual  move- 
ment exceedingly  rapid,  but  that  the  mental 
concentration  is  most  intense,  monotonous, 
and  unremitting ;  while  the  result  attained, 
even  at  the  utmost  endeavor,  is  not  very 
great.  It  will  hence  be  readily  understood, 
that  in  the  constant  employ  at  this  occupa- 
tion there  must  of  necessity  be  a  most  ex- 
hausting draft  upon  the  mental  and  physical 
forces.  Exactly  such  is  found  to  be  the 
case ;  and  this  pursuit,  which,  it  will  be 
seen,  combines,  to  a  degree  that  no  other  we 
have  considered  does,  the  several  special 
influences  of  mental  depression,  concentra- 
tion, alertness,  continued  exercise,  and 
monotony,  exercises  its  deleterious  power 
upon  the  periodicity  of  its  followers  in  the 
way  and  with  the  rapidity  that  we  should 
expect. 

Miss ,  the  lady  longest  in  the  employ 

of  the  department,  and  in  charge  of  the 
"  counting "  (over  thirteen  years),  states 
that,  — 


OBJECTIVE.  109 

* '  The  girls  usually  come  into  the  work  looking 
rosy  and  healthy;  but  they  very  soon  grow  pale- lipped 
and  pale-cheeked,  and  soon  begin  to  require  more  or 
less  absence.  When  they  first  begin  the  work,  they 
all  sit  very  straight,  and  count  very  fast,  although  I 
always  counsel  them  against  the  fast  counting;  for  no 
one  has  ever  yet  undertaken  it  that  did  not  break 
down,  if  young.  Gradually  they  learn  to  count 
faster,  but  they  cannot  continue  in  the  work  but  a 
short  time.  The  sickness  and  absence  become  more 
frequent,  and  by  and  by  they  are  obliged  to  leave 
altogether.  We  have  those  over  fifty,  and  one  of  sixty 
years  of  age  employed;  and  they  are  the  only  ones,  with 
perhaps  a  single  exception,  who  do  not  seem  to  feel  the 
effects." 

Question.  "What  is  the  exception?"  Answer. 
"  We  have  a  young  lady  who  counts  easily,  and  looks 
off  her  work  more  or  less,  and  is  not  in  general  so 
closely  confined  to  her  work  as  the  others,  and  does 
not  seem  to  feel  it  as  much  as  they." 

Q.  "Do  you  consider  that  she  can  do  her  work 
1  mechanically,'  then?  "  A.  "  She  thinks  she  can." 

Q.  "Do  you  ?  "  A.  "  We  do  not  find  her  work 
as  correct." 

Q.  "  You  would  hardly  be  willing  to  trust  it?" 
A.  "We  do  not." 

Q.     "Have  you  satisfied  yourself  of  the  way,  the 

direction,  in  which  this  steady  and  concentrated  labor 
10 


110  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

acts  upon  your  young  ladies  ?  "  A .  "  They  all 
suffer  more  or  less  from  headaches,  severe  backaches, 
debility,  and  constipation,  but  all  the  younger  ones, 
particularly,  from  too  frequent  and  profuse  return  of 
their  menses.  I  think  this  last  the  worst  feature  ;  for, 
as  soon  as  that  begins,  they  lose  color,  grow  nervous 
and  feeble,  are  often  absent,  and  suffer  along  till  they 
1  give  up.'  ' 

Q.  u  Are  there  any  influences  connected  with  the 
work  other  than  those  which,  as  we  see,  are  part  of 
it,  that  act  badly  on  the  employees?"  A.  u  Our 
rooms  are  fearfully  hot, — most  unhealthily  so,  I 
think  ;  and  of  course  the  stoop  which  a  girl  soon 
gets  is  bad,  as  well  as  her  sitting  so  long  in  one  posi- 
tion. No  other  unhealthy  '  influences.' ' 

Q.  "  You  consider,  then,  that  the  very  character  of 
the  work  is  surely  and  rapidly  prejudicial  to  the 
health  of  the  young  women  engaged  in  it,  and  espe- 
cially on  account  of  their  sex  ?  "  A .  "  Yes,  I  do ;  and 
they  camrot  remain  it  but  a  very  short  time.  It  told 
upon  me  severely  when  I  began,  and  I  was  matured 
when  I  began;  and,  if  I  had  been  at  the  counting,  I 
could  not  have  remained." 

The  counting  of  "  strands  "  of  rattan,  used 
in  "  cane-seating  "  furniture,  etc.,  is  an  em- 
ployment which,  as  carried  on  at  Wakefield 


OBJECTIVE.  Ill 

and  Fitcliburg,  Mass.,  employs  a  large 
number  of  women  and  girls.  The  work 
consists  in  each  of  those  engaged  drawing 
rapidly  and  continuously  from  a  large  roll 
of  tangled  strands,  just  as  received  from 
the  "  hatcheling "  machine,  one  or  more 
of  these  strips,  and  straightening  it,  placing 
them  on  a  peg  upon  the  wall,  so  arranged 
that  the  strand  length  can  be  measured 
as  it  hangs ;  and  subsequently  counting 
them  off  into  bundles,  the  latter  part  being 
performed  with  great  rapidity.  There  is 
no  aid  to  the  counting  except  that  each 
operative  learns,  in  time,  about  how  many 
her  right  hand  will  hold ;  for,  as  she  holds 
the  loose  bundle  of  strands  in  her  left, 
she  transfers  them,  with  a  swift,  sliding 
motion,  under  the  thumb  of  the  right,  until 
the  hand  is  full,,  thereby  in  time  acquiring 
a  general  idea*  of  about  how  many  it  would 
usually  contain.  The  allied  mental  and 
physical  demands  of  the  process  itself  are 
closely  similar  to  those  of  money-counting, 
but  the  labor  has  the  additional  exhaustive 


112  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

characteristic  that  it  is  performed  stand- 
ing.* 

An  inquiry  among  those  engaged  in  this 
department,  and  into  the  factory  record  of 
those  who  have  been  so  employed,  establishes 
the  following  :  — 

Young  girls  of  the  forming  period  are 
not  now  put  upon  the  work  at  all,  it  having 
been  found  that  it  was  impossible  for  them 
to  continue  it  long. 

With  those  of  more  advanced  age,  the 
menopause  is  more  or  less  affected,  the  gen- 

*  "The  same  causes  of  ill  health,  physical  and  mental, 
which  obtain  in  many  schools,  arid  which  to  my  mind  are 
very  efficient  in  mischief  to  the  developing  woman,  are 
found,  as  we  all  know,  in  shops  and  factories,  in  constant 
operation,  and  in  the  most  aggravated  form.  I  consider 
those  employments  which  require  girls  from  twelve  to 
twenty  to  stand  at  the  counter  or  loom  from  eight  to 
twelve  hours  a  day,  week  in  and  week  out,  as  little  short 
of  suicidal,  murderous  perhaps  I  should  say.  Table  and 
nursery  girls,  in  hotels  and  city  houses,  are  notable  sub- 
jects of  menorrhagia,  ansemia,  chlorosis,  and  often  of  hys- 
terical excitement  or  melancholia.  These  things  are  mat- 
ters of  experience  to  every  physician,  though  hard  to 
present  in  statistical  form."  — THEO.  W.  FISHER,  M.  D. : 
Letter  to  author. 


OBJECTIVE.  113 

eral  disturbance  being  in  the  direction  of 
menorrhagia,  or  profuse  menstruation. 

The  more  advanced  toward  matured  adult 
life  the  individual,  the  better  she  is  able  to 
endure  the  hardship  of  the  employ. 

There  is  general  suffering  with  those  so 
engaged,  from  persistent  headache,  dropsical 
affections,  and  severe  dyspepsia ;  while  not 
infrequent  "uterine  inflammations  and  dis- 
placement have  come  under  my  own  knowl- 
edge among  the  operatives  in  this  depart- 
ment. 

Few  have  been  able  to  follow  it  for  any 
length  of  time,  and  these  not  continuously ; 
the  duration  of  employ  being  closely  *  pro- 
portionate to  the  maturity  of  the  individual. 

A  casual  inquiry  among  stenographers  has 
assured  me,  that,  although  a  vocation  ad- 
mirably adapted  in  many  of  its  features  for 
the  exercise  of  female  ability,  and  embracing 
demands  for  the  deft  celerity,  with  the  ready 
perception  and  appreciation  of  women  ;  its 
requirements  of  concentration  and  nervous 
10* 


114  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

force  are  such,  as  well  as  considerable  phys- 
ical endurance,  that  women  shrink  from 
it,  although  the  demand  for  skilled  stenog- 
raphers is  daily  greater.  The  United  States 
census  of  1870  shows  that  only  three  had  thus 
far  established  themselves  as  such.  One  of 
the  most  expert  of  this  class  in  the  country 
gives  it  as  his  opinion,  that  "  constant  em- 
ploy therein  would  inevitably  break  a  young 
woman  down  in  a  short  time."  It  certainly 
is  significant,  that  an  employment  whose 
general  characteristics,  associations,  and  pe- 
cuniary return  may  be  said  to  be  so  enticing 
to  women  should  not  have  attracted  to  its 
ranks  larger  numbers,  when  the  field  is  so 
wide.  Were  it  not  that  its  effects,  and  the 
difficulty  of  securing  success  therein  without 
incurring  them,  have  become  recognized,  it 
certainly  would  seem  that  its  labors  would 
have  been  far  more  widely  adopted. 

SEWING-MACHINE  LABOR. 

The  several  branches  of  industry  hitherto 
considered  have  all  been  such  as  have  their 


OBJECTIVE.  115 

physical  requirements  principally  met  by  the 
labor  of  the  hands  alone  (except  such  in- 
volvement of  pedal  power  as  was  embraced 
in  standing,  walking,  etc.)  ;  but,  in  sewing- 
machine  use,  we  have  an  employ  calling  into 
exercise  the  active  service  of  the  feet  and 
lower  limbs,  which,  as  more  closely  allied  to 
the  organs  involved  in  menstruation,  and  to  a 
certain  extent  enjoying  the  same  vascular 
system,  may  be  considered  as  possessing  a  new 
relay  of  interest.  While  all  the  pursuits  dwelt 
upon  have  been  characterized  by  a  greater  or 
less  degree  of  disadvantage  in  posture,  in 
the  use  of  the  sewing-machine  this  disadvan- 
tage is  rather  aggravated  than  otherwise. 
There  is  no  need  to  enlarge  upon  the  extent 
of  its  use,  or  to  state  that  the  use  of  power- 
propelled  machines  does  not  fall  under  re- 
view ;  nor  will  it  be  necessary,  in  view  of  the 
exhaustive  examinations  of  the  subject  by 
Guibout,*  Decaisne,f  Nichols,  J  and  others,  to 

*  Paper  before  "Soc.  Medicale  des  Hopitaux." 

t  Ann.'d'Hyg.  Pub.  1870,  2d  ser.  vol.  xxxvi. 

t  Dr.  A.  H.  Nichols,  3d  Rep.  Board  of  Health,  Mass. 


116  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

do  more  than  adapt  their  findings  to  the 
place  they  properly  hold  in  relation  to  the 
results  we  are  considering. 

While  the  investigations  of  Guibout  are 
characterized,  on  the  one  hand,  by  an  exagger- 
ation of  the  injurious  influences  incident  to 
sewing-machine  use,  and  those  of  Decaisne, 
on  the  other  hand,  by  a  too  slight  regard  for 
these  influences  (though  his  inquiries  were 
extended),  the  more  nearly  trustworthy  de- 
ductions of  Dr.  Nichols  *  establish  a  series  of 
"  conclusions  "  which  expose  a  grave  degree 
of  harm.  The  comprehensive  question  asked 
by  Dr.  Nichols  of  his  correspondents  was, 
uHave  you  observed  any  injury  to  health 
from  the  use  of  sewing-machines  used  by 
foot-power  ?  If  so,  please  to  send  us  all  the 
information  you  may  have  on  the  subject." 

Replies  were  received  from  one  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  correspondents,  representing 
one  hundred  and  twenty  towns  in  Massachu- 
setts, and  several  in  other  States. 

*  Dr.  A.  H.  Nichols,  3d  Eep.  Board  of  Health,  Mass. 


OBJECTIVE.  117 

Eighty  report  more  or  less  ill  effects  ob- 
served by  them  ;  the  balance,  giving  negative 
or  doubtful  answers,  were  mainly  from  towns 
where  the  machines  were  used  only  in  pri- 
vate families,  etc.  My  own  analysis  of  the 
published  replies  shows  that  sixty-nine  phy- 
sicians replied  to  the  query.  Of  this  num- 
ber, forty-four  answered  in  an  emphatic 
manner,  declaring  the  results  to  be  un- 
doubted upon  the  organs  of  menstruation 
and  the  function  itself;  four,  only,  held  nega- 
tive views ;  while  the  remainder  assigned  to 
the  use  other  results  indirectly  operative  to 
the  same  end. 

I  quote  a  few  only,  taken  at  random  from 
the  many  unequivocal  statements  of  these 
physicians  as  to  the  pernicious  effects  of  this 
industry. 

REPLIES   FROM   MASSACHUSETTS   PHYSICIANS. 

A.  "  Quite  a  number  of  cases,  in  which  pain  and 
lameness  in  the  back  and  thighs,  dyspepsia,  leucor- 
rhoea,  vaginitis,  and  menorrhagia  existed,  I  have  attrib- 
uted to  their  use." 

B.  "The  most  common  disease  I  have  seen  is  a 


118  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

chronic  form  of  ovaritis,  which  it  is  impossible  to 
cure  while  the  girl  is  at  work." 

C.  u  The  use  of  the  machine  during  menstruation 
is  especially  injurious.     I  have  even  known  a  case 
where  a  severe  attack  of  ovaritis  and  retroflexion  of 
the  uterus  followed  its  use  during  a  single  menstrual 
period." 

D.  u  I  think  I  have  observed  a  greater  tendency  to 
dysmenorrhoea  and  other    uterine    troubles    among 
those  who  use  the  sewing-machine  for  a  living  than 
among  others." 

E.  "  Cases  of  unmistakable  injury,  very  frequent  a 
few  years  ago^  causing  marked  irregularities  of  the 
menstrual  function,*  and  their  usual    sequelce.     The 
almost  universal    introduction    of    steam-power  has 
greatly  diminished  this  class  of  cases." 

F.  "  Constant  and  long-continued  use  of  sewing- 
machines,  moved  by  foot-power,  tends  to  induce  func- 
tional diseases  of  the  uterus.     Three  girls  working  in 
the  same  shop  ten  hours  daily,  for  two  or  three  years, 
now  suffer  from  dysmenorrhoea,  from  which  they  were 
formerly  free. " 

Says  a  Boston  physician  *  who  for  many 
years  has  given  special  attention  to  the 
gynaecological  affections  of  women,  — 

*  Horatio  R.  Storer,  M.D.,  Lecture  on  Female  Hygiene, 
before  State  Board  of  Health  of  California,  p.  13. 


OBJECTIVE.  119 

"  The  sewing-machine,  that  compound  of  blessing 
and  curse  to  woman,  adds  to  the  list  of  influences 
causative  of  disease,  not  only  acting  in  several  of 
the  ways  suggested,  by  the  long-continued  and  con- 
strained position  and  fatiguing  of  the  pelvic  muscles  ; 
but  in  another,  not  generally  sufficiently  appreciated, 
by  which  a  mental  and  dangerous  disquietude  is  origin- 
ated and  enhanced  by  the  unintentional  auto-stupra- 
tion." 

t 

Another  well-known  physician  *  of  Boston 
writes :  — 

4  i  I  once  observed  many  cases  of  debility,  and  pain 
in  spine  and  side,  with  now  and  then  menstrual  dis- 
orders, in  a  shopful  of  sewing-machine  girls,  which 
ceased  to  exist  when  steam  was  applied. " 

OTHER   PHYSICIANS. 

A.  u  I  have  investigated  quite  a  number  of  cases 
where  diseases  were  produced  by  running  sewing-ma- 
chines by  foot-power.  Among  these  diseases,  I  have 
noticed' several  cases  of  lameness  of  limbs  and  back, 
menorrhagia,  dysmenorrhoea,  amenorrhcea,  leucor- 
rhcea,  and  displacements." 

B.  "  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  this  employ- 

*  Theo.  W.  Fisher,  M.D. :  Letter  to  the  author. 


120  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

ment  among  females  is  more  powerful  and  efficient  in 
the  production  of  disease  of  various  kinds  in  that 
sex  than  almost  all  other  causes  combined." 

To  these  expressions  of  physicians,  pre- 
sumably as  safe  a  criterion  of  the  real  results 
produced  by  the  occupation  as  can  be  ob- 
tained, Dr.  Nichols  has  added  numerous 
varying  experiences  of  the  workwomen 
themselves,  which,  though  not  as  harmoni- 
ous or  positive  in  their  findings,  are  suffi- 
ciently so  to  make  it  certain  that  a  grave 
degree  of  peculiar  disturbance  is  recognized 
by  them.  The  "  conclusions  "  given  by  Dr. 
Nichols  are :  — 

'  *  That  the  illnesses  which  most  frequently  prevail 
among  professional  operatives  (as  distinguished  from 
home  operatives)  making  use  of  the  treadle  (foot- 
power)  are,  — 

"  (a)  Indigestion,  attributable  to  the  unhealthy 
conditions  in  which  they  pursue  their  occupation, 
particularly  the  impure  atmosphere  of  the  workrooms, 
the  sedentary  employment,  and  want  of  open-air  ex- 
ercise. 

"  (6)  Muscular  pains,  affecting  the  lower  limbs 
and  trunk,  produced  by  the  long-continued,  frequent 
use  of  the  muscles. 


OBJECTIVE.  121 

"  (c)  Diseases  peculiar  to  women,  aggravated  by, 
rather  than  caused  by,  the  plethoric  condition  of  the 
pelvic  organs,  induced  by  this  exercise. 

1 '  (d)  General  debility.  By  this  is  meant  a  state 
of  physical  deterioration  -  and  nervous  prostration 
brought  on  by  overwork." 

Adding  to  these  conclusions  the  single  re- 
mark, that  my  own  observations  and  review 
of  the  data  given  would  indicate  a  classifica- 
tion of  these  influences  upon  female  ill  health 
as  more  decidedly  "  causative  "  than  "  ag- 
gravating," the  belief  may  fairly  be  educed 
therefrom,  that  in  the  continued  use  of  the 
sewing-machine  by' foot-power,  there  resides 
a  source  of  special  functional  disturbance  in 
women,  which  is  extensive  in  its  reach,  arid 
embraces  overwork,  often  under  bad  sani- 
tary surroundings,  labor  to  which  much  of 
the  monotony  and  unremitting  character  in- 
cident to  most  machine-work  attaches,  and 
muscular  activity  coupled  with  a  considera- 
ble degree  of  mental  concentration ;  this 
last  being  in  an  intermediate  degree  to  that 
required  by  factory  machinery,  and  that 
11 


122  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

required  by  the  telegraph  instrument.  The 
evidence  of  the  direct  influence  of  this  spe- 
cies of  employ  upon  the  catamenial  function 
is  notably  abundant,  and  raises  the  query,  if 
the  fact  of  pedal  rather  than  manual  muscu- 
lar power  as  here  involved  is  the  real  cause 
of  a  greater  effect ;  or,  whether  the  simpler 
methods  of  argument  cause  those  affected 
(by  localizing  the  energy  in  closer  relation 
to  the  parts  seen  to  be  most  influenced)  to 
infer  an  injury  that  they  would  be  slow  to 
recognize  when  remote  agents,  as  the  hand, 
are  active,  and  the  brain  must  be  summoned 
to  greater  participation  to  produce  the  effect. 
As  an  employment  still  enlisting  the  labors 
of  large  numbers  of  young  women  of  the 
ages  we  are  considering,  notwithstanding  the 
very  considerable  introduction  of  steam- 
power  to  its  uses,  it  is  well  worthy  the  con- 
sideration of  the  economist  and  legislator ; 
for  from  its  ranks  the  offices  of  wife  and 
mother  are  filled  to  no  mean  degree,  few  of 
the  class  continuing  many  years  in  the  work, 
while  those  engaged  therein  are,  as  a  rule, 


OBJECTIVE.  123 

of  different  fibre  from  those  of  factory  labor, 
and  do  not  like  them  raise'  up  and  perpetu- 
ate succeeding  generations  of  employees  for 
the  same  work. 

We  may  fairly  conclude,  from  the  fore- 
going testimony  and  data  from  the  various 
channels  of  industry,  — 

First,  That  a  sure  and  swift  result  must 
follow  to  the  immature  female  whenever  she 
engages  in  an  employ  requiring  mental  and 
physical  concentration  and  celerity. 

Second,  That  the  disturbance  will  be  pro- 
portionate, in  the  rapidity  of  its  advance  and 
degree,  to  the  degree  of  concentration,  celer- 
ity, and  continuity  of  employ. 

Third,  That  its  most  active  and  most  bale- 
ful effects  will  be  upon  the  functions  peculiar 
to  the  sex. 

Whatsoever,  therefore,  in  industry,  exerts 
these  influences  (whose  present  and  prospec- 
tive and  almost  unending  results  we  have 
pointed  out),  demands  the  exercise  of  all 
ingenuity,  wisdom,  and  care,  to  secure  its 
alleviation  and  removal.  Certain  of  the  em- 


124  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

ployments  of  women  include  these  evils  from 
seeming  present  necessity ;  but  it  becomes 
the  duty  of  all  to  direct  their  studious  atten- 
tion thereto,  if  perchance  a  relief  may  be 
found ;  while  for  other  forms  of  employ  only 
the  false  notions  that  exist  need  to  be  over- 
thrown, to  banish  at  least  some  of  their  at- 
tendant evils. 


PART  III. 

SUGGESTIVE. 

"  The  commonwealth  is  to  take  necessary  measures  for 
the  protection  of  public  health,  and  to  secure  society 
against  whatever  may  be  a  public  nuisance  or  a 
public  peril."  —  MULFOKD  :  The  Nation,  p.  286. 

I  HAVE  intimated  that  the  exactions  of  * 
distorted  views  of  life,  the  consequent  dis- 
arrangement of  economic  adjustments,  and 
woman's  own  mistaken  ambitions,  have  in- 
flicted upon  her  a  position  in  industrial  toil 
foreign  to  the  true  intent  of  her  being.  In 
brief,  she  must  now  labor  for  bread  in  the 
same  field  with  men,  and,  so  doing,  falls 
short  of,  is  outside,  her  true  and  highest 
possibilities  and  privileges.  What,  then,  are 
these  ?  and  how  may  the  designed  condition, 

11*  125 


126  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

so  far  as  industry  is  concerned,  be  brought 
about  ?     Says  Maudsley  :  *  — 

"  Could  we  in  imagination  trace  mankind  back- 
ward along  the  path  stretching  through  the  ages,  on 
which  it  has  gone  forward  to  its  present  height 
and  complexity  of  emotion,  and  suppose  each  new 
emotional  element  to  be  given  off  at  the  spot  where  it 
was  acquired,  we  should  view  a  road  along  which  the 
fragments  of  our  high,  special,  and  complex  feeling 
were  scattered,  and  should  reach  a  starting-point  of 
the  primitive  instincts  of  self  -preservation  and  propa- 
gation. 

1 '  In  the  first  place,  a  proper  regard  to  the  physical 
nature  of  women  means  attention  given,  in  their 
training,  to  their  peculiar  functions,  and  to  their 
fore-ordained  work  as  mothers  and  nurses  of  children. 
Whatever  aspirations  of  an  intellectual  kind  they  may 
have,  they  cannot  be  relieved  from  the  performance 
of  those  offices  so  long  as  it  is  thought  necessary  that 
mankind  should  continue  on  earth. 9 ' 

For  woman  is  reserved,  therefore,  the  dis- 
tinctive glory  and  honor  of  the  chief  agency 
in  the  perpetuity,  development,  and  training 
of  her  race.  To  a  distinction  so  dignified,  a 

*  Sex  in  Mind  and  Education,  Henry  Maudsley,  M.D. 


SUGGESTIVE.  127 

position  so  ennobling,  the  highest  enthrone- 
ment is  fittingly  to  be  accorded. 

"  Nothing/'  says  Gaskell,  *  "  would  tend  more  to 
elevate  the  moral  Condition  of  the  population  than  the 
restoration  of  woman  to  her  proper  social  rank ;  noth- 
ing would  exercise  greater  influence  upon  the  form 
and  growth  of  her  offspring  than  her  devotion  to 
those  womanly  occupations  which  would  render  her  a 
denizen  of  home.  No  great  step  can  be  made  till  she 
is  snatched  from  unremitting  toil,  and  made  what 
nature  meant  she  should  be,  —  the  centre  of  a  system 
of -social  delights.  Domestic  avocations  are  those  of 
her  peculiar  lot.  The  poor  man  who  suffers  his  wife 
to  work,  separated  from  him  and  from  home,  is  a  bad 
calculator. ' ' 

To  bring  woman  to  the  position  she  should 
hold  in  the  world's  work,  is  hence  but  to 
recognize,  her,  in  the  fullest  sense,  as  the 
custodian  and  exponent  of  powers  and  prin- 
ciples of  paramount  importance,  not  only 
to  the  well-being,  but  to  the  very  existence 
of  the  race.  Sex,  God-implanted,  imperative 
for  the  very  possibility  of  being,  claims  for 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  160. 

ftpiitaho«.*f  I 


128  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

itself  more  than  ordinary  recognition :  it 
demands  tlie  most  enlarged  consideration. 
Woman,  as  we  have  seen,  holds  in  industry 
a  position  inconsistent  and.  incompatible 
with  the  coeval  possession  of  her  true  plane. 

To  take  things  as  they  are,  and  without 
creating  disaster  in  the  machinery  of  society, 
to  bring  the  female  worker  to  the  higher  level 
of  her  intended  vocation,  is  a  problem  not 
easy  of  solution,  and  yet  is  the  one  that  it  is 
all  essential,  if  we  are  to  retain  our  place 
and  nation,  should  receive  a  not  tardy  dem- 
onstration. In  the  adaptation  of  educational 
systems  to  the  physiological  needs  of  the 
forming  girl,  the  measures  to  be  taken  are 
few  and  obvious.  To  re-adjust  industry  on 
the  same  basis,  and  to  the  same  ends,  involves 
such  an  intricacy  of  detail,  such  an  innova- 
tion of  existing  customs,  and  so  entire  an 
overthrow  of  the  established  order  of  things, 
that  any  movement  in  this  direction  must  be 
exceedingly  gradual,  and  attack  only  the 
edges  of  the  great  mass  of  error. 

I  may  presume,  therefore,  only  to  offer  a 


SUGGESTIVE.  129 

few  suggestions  which  aim  at  improvement 
of  existing  conditions  in  industry ;  hoping 
that  in  some  degree  I  may  have  made  bare, 
for  the  steel  of  more  stalwart  axemen,  the 
roots  and  fibres  that  bind  us  to  degeneracy 
and  decay. 

That  for  years  to  come,  our  girls  of  form- 
ing age  will  continue  from  necessity  to  enter 
the  various  lines  of  industry,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  And,  so  long  as  it  is  a  necessity  im- 
posed by  the  duty  of  bearing  the  burden  of 
self-support  that  else  must  fall  unduly  on 
others,  the  toil  becomes  a  dignity ;  and,  so 
long  as  it  be  honest,  ennobles  the  laborer. 
Hence  the  dignity  of  labor  is  universal ;  and 
there  is  no  rightful  pride  of  superiority 
which  one  form  may  exercise  over  another, 
so  long  as  the  one  engaged  in  is  the  best  for 
which  the  individual  is  fitted,  for  the  result 
to  herself  and  society.  The  book-keeper 
trained  to  that  employ  has  no  right  of  supe- 
riority over  the  sewing-machine  girl  trained 
to  that  work,  by  virtue  of  the  more  distinct- 
ively mental  character  of  her  pursuit.  But 


130  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

there  is  a  comparison  that  may  rightfully  be, 
and  should  be  drawn,  between  these  employ- 
ments of  women ;  and  it  is  based  solely 
on  their  respective  effects  on  the  health  of 
the  operative.  It  is  to  such  a  distinction,  as 
affecting  wages,  hours,  and  the  persistence 
of  labor  of  employees,  that  we  look  for  a 
measure  of  good  to  the  working-girl.  A 
scientific  gradation  of  pursuits  as  to  their 
salubrity  or  non-salubrity,  their  physiological 
effects,  will  sooner  or  later  be  effected,  and 
govern,  to  a  great  degree,  the  participation 
therein  of  the  forming  female.  The  influ- 
ences *  affecting  moral  conditions  in  various 

*  While  these  last  pages  have  been  going  through  the 
press,  I  have  received  a  letter  from  a  widely-known 
physician  in  one  of  the  large  manufacturing  cities  of  this 
State;  in  which,  speaking  of  the  evil  effects  of  moral  and 
phj^sical  disregard  in  the  want  of  privies,  or  the  bad  loca- 
tion thereof,  he  says,  "A  trip  to  L to  examine  the 

water-closets  of  the  workshops  of  this  place  would  pay, 
or,  rather,  to  see  the  general  lack  of  all  convenience  in 
the  shops  for  women  and  girls.  I  am  satisfied  that  a  very 

large  proportion  of  disease  in  our  L female  population 

is  due  to  the  fact  that  so  few  facilities  are  afforded  women 
to  attend  to  calls  of  nature. 


SUGGESTIVE.  131 

classes  of  employ,  as  inseparable  from  definite 
physical  and  physico-moral  effects  on  those 
employed  therein,  will,  also,  undoubtedly 
come  in  for  a  much-needed  share  of  con- 
sideration. 

It  has  not  been  difficult  to  discover  and 
point  out  the  errors  and  evils  that  attend 
upon  the  several  forms  of  employ,  and  that 
operate  against  the  health,  happiness,  and 
usefulness  of  women.  To  suggest  the  reme- 
dies for  these  is  obviously  a  matter  of  no 
small  moment,  and  not  easy  of  accomplish- 
ment. 

As  there  are  basis  principles  of  health, 
which  are  affected,  as  we  have  seen,  by  these 
conditions  of  employ,  so  are  there  basis  prin- 

"I  am  equally  satisfied,  from  the  fact,  that  in  shops 
where  a  water-closet  is  so  exposed  that  women  must  be 
seen  by  all  the  men  when  they  enter,  that  that  alone  has 
a  bad  moral  influence  upon  them.  I  know  it;  and  in  a 
conversation  I  had  in  my  office  to-day,  with  a  girl  of 
eighteen,  who  suffered  severely  from  constipation,  and 
inflammation  of  the  bladder  (that  being  her  usual  habit), 
she  gave  as  a  cause,  that,  in  her  shop,  the  men  could  see 
every  girl  that  visited  the  closet,  and  that  therefore  none 
but  the  lad  girls  would  go." 


132  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

ciples  of  error  which  lie  at  the  root  of  all 
branches  of  wrong. 

I  believe  that  the  grave  mistakes  of  our 
labor  system,  as  affecting  the  class  of  females 
considered,  are,  — 

First,  That  we  employ  those  therein 
whose  years  absolutely  prohibit  their  being 
employed  at  labor  at  all. 

Second,  That  their  hours  of  labor  are  too 
long;  and, — 

Third,  That  we  sadly  neglect  the  meas- 
ures that  are  adaptable  to  insure  a  correct 
sanitary  condition  of  our  operatives  during 
their  labor. 

Under  one  or  the  other  of  these  cardinal 
forms  of  error,  all  the  specific  evils  of  differ- 
ent occupations  or  circumstances  will  ar- 
range themselves. 

No  child  or  young  person  of  either  sex, 
under  the  age  of  fifteen  years,  should  ever 
be  engaged  in  any  form  of  industrial  employ 
necessitating  absence  from  school,  or  a  draft 
on  vital  energy.  The  normal  position  of 
those  of  that  age  is  in  the  work  of  educa- 


SUGGESTIVE.  133 

tion  ;  and,  until  this  is  recognized,  the  nation 
and  individuals  must  suffer  present  and 
future  loss,  —  loss  of  bodily  vigor,  without 
which  a  nation  must  die ;  loss  of  knowl- 
edge, which  is  power  to  upbuild,  to  keep, 
to  develop ;  loss  in  the  higher  values  that 
belong  to  the  nobler  parts  of  our  being,  and 
that  cannot  expand  in  a  soul  or  body 
dwarfed  and  exhausted  by  the  gross  de- 
mands of  purely  animal  existence. 

But  it  is  objected,  it  can  be  clearly  shown 
in  this  Commonwealth,  that  while  it  is  true, 
that  the  money  in  savings  banks,  to  a  con- 
siderable extent,  belongs  to  laboring  people, 
little  of  it  would  be  there  if  it  were  not  for 
the  labor  of  women  and  children,  the  wives 
and  offspring  of  laboring  men  ;  indeed,  that, 
without  their  assisting  labor,  it  is  proved 
that  the  average  laborer  could  not  make  the 
ends  of  the  year  meet.  Granted ;  and  yet 
my  proposition  is  nevertheless  of  full  force, 
and  for  two  reasons  :  — 

First,  Because  it  is  plain  that  there  is  an 
error  in  that  price  and  form  of  labor  that  will 
12 


134  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

not  permit  a  man  to  support  his  family  in 
comfort  without  drawing  on  the  vital  powers 
of  those  to  whom  we  must  look  to  make  his 
place  good,  and  to  not  only  carry  on,  but  im- 
prove upon,  the  work  of  society. 

Second,  Because  we  can  never  afford  to 
set  a  price  upon  body  and  soul ;  and  any  bar- 
ter of  strength,  happiness,  and  knowledge, 
for  mere  money-return,  is  an  exchange  that 
will  surely  rob  us  in  the  long-run. 

Is  it  true,  as  scientists  *  tell  us,  that  there 
is  a  progressive  decline  and  deterioration  in 
the  mental  vigor  and  physical  stability  of  our 
people  ?  We  have  to  thank  for  it  these  er- 
rors that  exhaust  the  life  of  the  fathers  and 
mothers  of  coming  generations,  to  convert  it 

*  "  That  there  has  been  a  decided  change  in  female 
organization  in  New  England  within  fifty  or  a  hundred 
years,  there  can  be  no  question.  Formerly  there  was 
more  muscle,  a  larger  frame,  greater  fulness  of  form,  and 
a  better  development  of  all  those  organs  that  are  classed 
under  the  sanguine  and  lymphatic  temperaments.  The 
brain  and  nervous  system  relatively  were  not  especially 
predominant ;  neither  were  they  taxed  continuously  or 
excessively  above  any  other  class  of  organs."  — NATHAN 
ALLEN,  M.D. :  Medical  Problems  of  the  Day,  p.  78. 


SUGGESTIVE.  135 

by  a  base  alchemy  into  present  gold,  —  a 
gold  that  by  and  by,  like  that  of  the  Phry- 
gian king,  will  be  all  there  is  to  offer  as 
bread,  as  homes,  as  armies,  as  thought-power, 
and  as  happiness. 

The  hours  of  labor  are  too  long, —  not  too 
long  to  earn  a  living  in,  for  they  barely  suf- 
fice, as  things  now  stand,  for  the  purpose  ; 
but  too  long  for  the  proper  physical  good, 
mental  culture,  and  moral  growth  of  those 
involved.  The  proper  physical  good  is  es- 
pecially our  concern.  If  the  co-operative 
system  of  labor  ever  reaches  a  general  result 
as  favorable  as  that  its  individual  successes 
would  warrant  a  hope  of,  I  believe  there 
may  then  be  both  time  and  an  inclination 
(not  -existing  at  its  best  in  a  worn  body  and 
tired  mind)  to  regard  those  questions  of  per- 
sonal cleanliness,  diet,  clothing,  hygienic  sur- 
roundings, and  physical  development,  now  so 
sadly  disregarded  by  the  working-classes, 
wherever  found.  An  hour  more  in  the 
morning  for  the  young  and  forming  female 
(and  that  is  where  it  may  be  most  advanta- 


136  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

geously  gained,  as  all  labor  investigators 
agree)  would  save  the  necessity  of  ill- 
cooked,  hurriedly  -  eaten,  badly  -  digested 
breakfasts  (made  on  hurriedly-prepared  food, 
in  which  tea  holds  a  prominent  place),  un- 
washed faces,  neglect  of  nature's  calls,  hur- 
ried passage  to  the  place  of  employ,  and  a 
disturbed,  dissatisfied,  and  fermenting  body 
and  mind,  stomach  and  brain.  Get  a  right 
conception  and  adoption  of  the  true  relation 
of  these  things  into  the  mind  and  lives  of 
working-people,  and  half  the  complaints  that 
now  arise,  like  those  from  the  Israelites  in 
the  desert,  will  cease,  as  did  theirs,  with  the 
right  appreciation  of  the  manna  from 
heaven. 

Remedy  these  ills,  and  thereby  elevate  the 
intrinsic  character  of  working-girls,  and  a 
large  part  of  the  invidious  social  distinction 
made  between  brain-labor  and  hand-labor, 
against  the  latter,  will  die  a  natural  death. 

An  advanced  intelligence  and  humanity  is 
yet  to  recognize,  moreover,  the  adaptation 
not  only  of  the  right  strength,  but  the  right 


SUGGESTIVE.  137 

hours  of  employ,  at  the  various  processes  of 
labor.  There  are  occupations  at  which  a 
Hercules  has  no  right  to  labor  a  full  day, 
and  they  should  be  graded  as  such,  and 
others  in  proportion ;  the  hours  of  labor 
being  adjusted  for  the  labor,  just  as  the 
strength  of  the  individual  should  be  adapted 
to  it. 

It  is  not  sought  to  raise  a  nation  of  effem- 
inates or  dilettanti  ;  nor  do  we  wish,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  make  the  land  a  hospital  for 
worn-out,  debilitated,  dyspeptic,  chlorotic, 
anaemic,  unsexed  men  and  women.  Shorter 
hours  of  labor,  better  improved,  on  better 
systems  of  the  divisions  of  profits,  may  be, 
to  some  degree  at  least,  an  antidote. 

We  sadly  neglect  the  measures  that  are 
adaptable  to  insure  a  correct  sanitary  con- 
dition of  our  operatives  during  their  labor. 
Of  this  the  proof  is  in  every  workshop, 
salesroom,  and  office  in  the  land.  Every 
occupation  proves  it,  and  the  diseases  and 
mortality  registers  make  it  indisputable. 
What  can  be  done  to  remedy  this  general 


138  SEX  IN   INDUSTRY. 

neglect,  and  what  to  meet,  with  special  pre- 
ventives, the  specific  dangers  of  definite 
occupations  ?  There  can  be  but  two  ways 
in  which  either  the  general  or  the  detailed 
ills  of  this  nature  can  be  met.  They  are, 
the  diffusion  of  sound  intelligence  bearing 
thereon,  and  the  enactment  and  enforcement 
of  efficient  repressing  law.  The  dissemina- 
tion of  intelligence  to  a  degree  that  shall 
cause  sex  to  be  recognized  in  labor ;  a  fitness 
of  things  in  the  apportionment  of  occupa- 
tions, both  as  to  strength  and  time  ;  that 
shall  convince  legislators  of  the  necessity  of 
laws,  and  their  enforcement  in  these  direc- 
tions ;  that  shall  demonstrate  to  the  employer 
the  certainty  that  every  draft  he  makes  upon 
the  vital  forces  of  by  and  by,  must  be  paid 
out  of  his  children's  pockets  and  their  lives, 
—  such  a  dissemination  is  at  once  the  most 
powerful  and  the  slowest-growing  of  influ- 
ences. •  Much  of  it,  however,  must  exist 
before  the  second  influence — legislation  and 
its  execution  —  can  be  established.  So  long 
as  men  are  prone  to  consult  their  own  selfish 


SUGGESTIVE.  139 

interests,  so  long  as  the  present  is  a  greater 
reality  than  the  future  in  the  eyes  of  men  ; 
the  simple  existence,  in  partial  recognition,  of 
principles  which,  however  vital  they  may 
be,  are  found  to  be  at  variance  with  men's 
interests,  or  to  deal  largely  with  the  future, 
will  not  be  sufficient  to  command  the  respect 
they  intrinsically  demand.  It  becomes  ne- 
cessary that  the  minds  that  do  recognize 
what  other  minds  would  recognize  but  for 
their  blinds  of  self-interest  and  distance, 
must  bring  into  operative  force  the  princi- 
ples •  that  should  prevail ;  and  this  can  be 

only  through  the  medium  of  law.  * 

% 

% 

*  Says  Dr.  Jarvis,  "Can  government  aid  in  improving 
human  life?  Is  there  room  here  in  the  field  of  human 
life  for  governmental  co-operation,  as  well  as  in  the  agri- 
cultural field  of  vegetable  and  animal  life?  It  is  power- 
ful there :  it  is  not  powerless,  and  need  not  be  ineffective, 
here.  The  power  of  government  is  threefold,  and  is  exe- 
cuted in  a  triple  way.  It  is  mandatory,  and  says,  Thou 
shalt,  and  thou  shalt  not.  It  is  permissive,  and  grants 
privileges.  It  is  advisory,  instructive,  and  encouraging. 
It  teaches  the  people  their  best  interests,  and  points  the 
way  of  gaining  them."  —  Polit.  Econ.  of  Health,  Op.  cit.  p. 
363. 


140  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

It  is  hence  essential,  that  such  enactments 
should  be  made  and  prosecuted  as  shall  best 
establish  the  condition  of  things  that  should 
be  ;  and  it  is  to  such  well-considered  and 
efficient  enactments  that  we  must  look  for 
the  prevention  of  much  that  now  affects 
most  unfavorably  the  condition  of  working- 
people,  and  especially  women  and  children. 
Provision  for  the  due  inspection  of,  and  in- 
quiry into,  the  real  conditions  of  labor,  is 
naturally  indicated  as  the  initial  desideratum 
of  such  law,  and  in  this  Commonwealth  is 
especially  necessary. 

What  is  needed  is  the  existence  of  inspec- 
tors of  labor  concomitants,  with  laws  suffi- 
ciently regulative  of  those  conditions,  and 
power  in  the  inspectors  acting  under  those 
laws  to  maintain  them  as  they  should  be. 
But  inasmuch  as  the  inspector,  without  law 
to  establish  what  is  evil  and  what  good,  is 
useless,  though  with  it  most  potent,  the  law 
becomes  the  chief  agent  in  the  work  of  re- 
form ;  and  it  is  to  the  wise  creation  and  the 
subsequent  execution  of  these  laws  that  we 
must  look  for  an  improvement. 


SUGGESTIVE.  141 

Says  Dr.  Jarvis,*  — 

"  In  as  far  as  human  life  is  more  important  than 
all  financial  interests,  and,  even  in  the  financial  view, 
the  creative  power  of  human  force  is  more  valuable 
than  all  created  capital,  this  cardinal  interest  of  the 
people,  individually  and  collectively,  should  take  pre- 
cedence of  all  other  provisions  in  all  legislation. 
Every  law,  grant,  or  privilege  from  the  legislature 
should  have  this  invariable  condition :  that  human 
health,  strength,  or  comfort  should  in  no  manner  or 
degree  be  impaired  or  vitiated  thereby. 

To  frame  laws  to  meet  the  demands  of  the 
principles  I  have  recognized,  under  all  their 
varying  conditions,  is  not  a  task  for  this 
space,  or  one  to  be  readily  accomplished ;  but 
we  may  fairly  consider,  in  brief,  some  of  the 
ends  it  is  specially  desirable  should  receive 
the  appreciation  of  the  public  in  general, 
and  the  employer  in  particular,  and,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  will  eventually  find  their  recogni- 
tion in  law.  It  is  believed,  — • 

That  the  employment  at  labor  of  any  girl 

*  Op.  cit.  p.  371. 


142  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

under  fifteen  years  of  age  should  not  be  al- 
lowed.* 

That  the  employment  of  girls  of  other  ages 
—  and  women  generally  —  at  employments 
unsuited  to  their  sex  should  not  be  suffered 
(such  employments  being  determined  by  a 
council  of  salubrity,  in  France,  composed  of 
those  most  eminently  fit  for  their  high  com- 
mission).! 

That,  in  siich  employments  as  women 
should  be  admitted  to,  they  should  be  per- 
mitted a  "  periodical  absence,"  without  pe- 
cuniary loss,  for  such  time  as  might  be  just 
and  necessary. 

That  in  employments  where  women  should 
be  admitted,  and  which  require  high  de- 
grees of  mental  concentration,  with  physical 
energy,  additional  vacations  of  sufficient  ex- 
tent should  be  the  right  of  the  employee. 

*  Prof.  Clarke  has  summed  it  up  tersely  when  he  says, 
"If  excessive  labor,  either  mental  or  physical,  is  imposed 
upon  children,  male  or  female,  their  development  will  in 
some  way  be  checked."  —  Op.  cit.  p,  41. 

t  See  appendix. 


SUGGESTIVE.  143 

That,  in  all  employments,  it  should  be  ob- 
ligatory upon  the  employer  to  conduct  the 
processes  of  the  occupation  under  the  most 
advantageous  conditions  to  health,  and  to 
secure  all  improvements  in  this  regard  that 
may  become  approved. 

That  in  all  larger  manufactories  (of  over 
certain  numbers  of  employees)  there  should 
be  special  sanitary  supervision  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  proprietors. 

That  there  should  be  a  well-established 
examination  and  certification  of  all  employes, 
male  and  female,  proposing  to  engage  in  any 
deleterious  or  burdensome  employ,  —  only 
those  being  certified  who  are  found  in  the 
possession  of  health  not  to  be  unduly  im- 
paired thereby,  and  only  such  to  be  em- 
ployed as  are  certified. 

To  the  clause  which  provides,  that  in  all 
employments  it  should  be  obligatory  upon 
the  employer  to  conduct  the  processes  of  the 
occupation  under  the  most  advantageous 
conditions  to  health,  etc.,  I  desire  to  direct 
attention.  To  improve  is  the  possibility  of 


144  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

the  present;  to  re-establish  may  be  the 
work*  of  centuries.  We  may  and  should, 
therefore,  prosecute  the  improvement  at 
once  and  assiduously.  Dr.  Clarke  has  sug- 
gested, that  "  the  keen  eye  and  rapid  hand  of 
gain,  of  what  Jouffroy  calls  self-interest 
well  understood,  is  sometimes  quicker  than 
the  brain  and  will  of  philanthropy  to  discern 
and  inaugurate  reform."  He  says, — 

"  There  is  an  establishment  in  Boston,  owned  and 
carried  on  by  a  man,  in  which  ten  or  a  dozen  girls 
are  constantly  employed.  Each  of  them  is  given, 
and  is  required  to  take,  a  vacation  of  three  days 
every  fourth  week.  It  is  sdarcely  necessary  to  say, 
that  their  sanitary  condition  is  exceptionally  good, 
and  that  the  aggregate  yearly  amount  of  work  which 
the  owner  obtains  is  greater  than  when  persistent 
attendance  and  labor  was  required." 

Unfortunately  for  woman  and  the  race, 
few  such  cases  of  wise  regard  exist  with 
employers  ;  but  it  is"  precisely  this  condition 
of  things  that  ought  to  exist,  and  become 
not  the  exception,  but  the  unvarying  custom. 
If  the  same  consideration  for  employees  were 


SUGGESTIVE.  145 

everywhere  exhibited  as  that  shown  by  the 
Blackstone  Mill  at  Blackstone,  which  has 
provided  bath-rooms  for  its  operatives,  or  the 
Hamilton  Mills  at  Lowell,  which  have  put 
in  operation  a  new  form  of  shuttle,  by 
which  the  dangers  incident  to  the  old  way 
of  sucking  the  thread  through  in  filling 
the  shuttle  gre  removed,  the  employers, 
woman,  and  the  race,  would  be  greatly  the 
gainers. 

Improved  apparatus  and  less  injurious 
processes,  ventilation,  the  instant  removal  of 
dust  from  dust-producing  machinery,  the  util- 
ization of  steam  (now  injuriously  wasted  in 
"  weave-rooms  ")  in  heating  water  for  baths, 
proper  kinds,  conditions,  and  seclusion  of  priv- 
ies, warm  dressing-rooms  for  girls  at  mills, 
etc.,  where  wet  clothing,  may  be  changed, 
alternation  of  labors  when  processes  are 
specially  exacting,  seats  for  girls  in  stores, 
and  better  opportunities  for  food,  such  as 
are  to  be  obtained  through  "  cooking-de- 
pots," "  Holly-tree  inns,"  —  etc.,  all  are 
agencies,  which,  with  many  others  that 

13 


146  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

might  yet  be  enumerated,  will  powerfully 
act  for  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of 
the  working  female  of  whatever  age,  but 
have  especial  powers  of  good  for  the  forming 
girl. 

The  walls  of  the  factories  at  Wakefield 
and  other  places,  blackened  by  the  foul  va- 
pors escaping  from  their  privies,  attest  the 
character  of  the  atmosphere  the  operatives 
breathe.  The  foul  condition  and  exposed 
location  of  these  privies  have  been  already 
shown.  Wet  floors,  draughty  rooms,  and 
severe  toil,  so  widely  the  rule  in  manufactur- 
ing establishments,  have  forced  upon  many  a 
working  girl  an  overthrow  of  her  special 
forces,  that  ended  in  clouded  intellect,  brok- 
en health,  and  early  death. 

It  behooves  the  state,  therefore,  to  stand, 
first,  as  the  legal  protector  of  its  most 
weighty  interests,  its  perpetuity  and  prog- 
ress :  and,  second,  as  the  patron  and  pro- 
moter of  whatever  will  aid  therein.  It  has 
been  deemed  wise  to  stimulate,  from  time  to 
time,  special  thought  and  inventive  genius  in 


SUGGESTIVE.  141 

aid  of  agricultural  *  or  commercial  interests, 
by  the  promise  of  large  pecuniary  rewards. 
What  more  legimate,  or  more  desirable,  than 
that  the  commonwealth  should  use  every  spur 
to  bring  to  the  lives  and  health  of  its  inhabit- 
ants every  device  by  which  they  may  be 
additionally  secured  or  promoted  ?  If  it  be 
advisable  to  offer  large  rewards  to  him  who 
shall  discover  the  prevention  of  rot  in  the 
potato  (an  article  of  food  of  comparatively 
small  value,  physiologically  considered),  and 
to  bestow  a  prize  of  due  proportion  for  "  the 

*  "It  is  shown  by  the  statistical  tables  of  Continental 
Europe,  that  the  annual  human  increase  depends  upon 
the  agricultural  product  of  it;  and  so  well  is  this  estab- 
lished, that,  in  countries  where  the  army  is  made  up 
by  the  conscription  of  a  certain  proportion  of  the  popula- 
tion, it  has  been  found,  that  not  only  the  number  to  be 
had  can,  with  a  fair  chance  of  accuracy,  be  estimated 
from  the  state  of  the  market  eighteen  to  twenty  years 
previously,  but  even  the  average  standard  height  of  the 
men  furnished." — KREPP:  The  Sewage  Question,  p.  9. 

If  this  be  so,  is  it  not  a  rational  thing,  that  powers  fully 
as  depletory  and  devitalizing  as  scarcity  of  food,  viz.,  the 
inimical  forces  against  the  health  of  woman,  should  have 
an  equally  untoward  effect  against  the  vigor  and  num- 
bers of  a  nation  ? 


148  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

r 

best  essay  on  the  building  of  roads,"  how 
much  more  so  for  the  creation  of  agencies 
that  shall  lessen  the  dangers  of  dust  in  facto- 
ries, of  injury  from  machinery,  of  fatiguing 
labor  at  the  sewing-machine,  the  telegraph- 
instrument,  and  the  type-case,  and  free  from 
their  baleful  force  the  foul  vapors  of  our 
noxious  trades !  In  nothing  can  the  state 
more  surely  seek  its  riches;  for  he  who 
thinks  must  accept  the  precept  of  Emerson, 
that  "  the  first  wealth  is  health." 

That  the  worker  herself  may,  by  the  ex- 
ercise of  recognized  precautions,  by  personal 
attention  to,  or  avoidance  of,  conditions 
unfavorable  to  health,  and  the  cultivation  of 
personal  habits  that  aid  the  promotion  there- 
of, do  much  to  lessen  the  evil  influences  of 
labor,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

So  far  as  she  sympathizes  in,  and  gives 
aid  to,  the  effort  that  a  comparatively  few  of 
her  sex  have  for  some  years  persistently 
urged  with  a  zeal  worthy  of  a  better  cause, 
—  for  the  competitive  relation  as  between  her 
and  man  in  industry,  —  she  countenances  an 


SUGGESTIVE.  149 

error.  It  is  an  error  whose  one  certain  effect 
is,  to  keep  her  in  an  abnormal  condition, 
beneath  her  rights,  and  under  her  opportu- 
nities. The  thoughtful  ones  of  her  sex 
recognize  this.  Says  Dr.  Frances  Emily 
White,*  — 

"  When  we  look  around  upon  the  great  industries 
of  life, — mining,  engineering,  manufacturing,  com- 
merce, and  the  rest,  — and  consider  how  little  direct 
agency  woman  has  had  in  bringing  them  to  their 
present  stage  of  progress,  we  are  compelled  to  believe, 
that  she  must  not  look  toward  direct  competition  with 
man  for  the  best  unfolding  of  her  powers ;  but  rather, 
while  continuing  to  supplement  him,  as  he  does  her, 
in  the  varied  interests  of  their  common  life,  that  her 
future  progress,  as  in  the  past,  will  consist  mainly  in 
the  development  of  a  higher  character  of  womanhood, 
through  the  selection  and  consequent  intension  of 
those  traits  peculiar  to  her  own  sex." 

Says  Van  de  Warker,f  — 

"  This  effort  of  woman  to  invade  all  the  higher 
forms  of  labor  is  a  force  battling  with  the  established 
order  of  sexual  relation. " 

*  FRANCES  E.  WHITE,  M.D. :  Woman's  Place  in  Nature, 
Popular  Science  Monthly,  January,  1875,  p.  301. 
t  Op.  cit.  p.  470. 
13* 

, 


150  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

Dr.  Allen  has  said,*  —     * 

"In  all  the  situations  and  pursuits  of  life,  the 
Almighty  has  established  bounds  or  limitations  beyond 
which  woman  cannot  go  without  defeating  the  primary 
objects  of  her  creation  :  maternity  is  the  primary  law 
of  her  creation." 

Says  Dr.  Maudsley,f  — 

"When  we  thus  look  the  matter  honestly  in  the 
face,  it  would  seem  plain,  that  women  are  marked  out 
by  nature  for  very  different  offices  in  life  from  those 
of  men,  and  that  the  healthy  performance  of  her 
special  functions  renders  it  improbable  she  will  suc- 
ceed, and  unwise  for  her  to  persevere,  in  running  over 
the  same  course  at  the  same  pace  with  him.  For 
such  a  race  she  is  certainly  weighted  unfairly.  Nor  is 
it  a  sufficient  reply  to  this  argument,  to  allege,  as  is 
sometimes  done,  that  there  are  many  women  who 
have  not  the  opportunity  of  getting  married,  or  who 
do  not  aspire  to  bear  children ;  for  whether  they  care 
to  be  mothers,  or  not,  they  cannot  dispense  with  those 
physiological  functions  of  their  nature  that  have 
reference  to  that  aim,  however  much  they  might  wish 
it;  and  they  cannot  disregard  them  in  the  labor  of  life 
without  injury  to  their  health.'* 

*  Nathan  Allen,  M.D.,  op.  cit.  p.  41. 
t  Sex  in  Mind  and  Education,  p.  30. 


SUGGESTIVE.  151 

The  weight  of  evidence  that  may  be  pre- 
sumed to  be  worthy  of  confidence  and  con- 
sideration would  seem  to  leave  no  doubt 
that  the  normal,  the  God-appointed  work  of 
woman,  wherein  lie  her  full  equality,  her 
peerage,  her  glory,  and  her  power,  is  that  of 
the  home  and  the  mother,  tlie  rearer,  the 
trainer,  the  blessing  of  man. 

To  the  "  noble  army  of  martyrs,"  the  tens 
of  thousands  of  working-women,  of  all  ages, 
in  America  to-day,  who  patiently  and  hope- 
fully toil  on  year  by  year,  under  the  abnormal 
burdens  a  disjointed  and  unreflective  society 
imposes,  I  pay  the  tribute  of  my  earnest 
sympathy,  my  admiration,  and  my  humble 
effort.  I  am  assured,  that,  out  of  the  laby- 
rinth of  perplexity  that  has  entangled  the 
question  of  woman's  rights,  there  will  sooner 
or  later  be  evolved  this  certainty :  that  the 
highest  moral  and  physical  well-being  of  a 
race  demands  that  there  shall  be  nothing 
in  its  conditions  of  life  and  labor  that  shall 
injure  the  richness  and  purity  of  the  chief 
source  whence  its  existence  and  its  best 
influences  come. 


152  SEX  IN  INDUSTRY. 

When  a  senator  of  one  of  the  most  rugged 
States  of  our  cold  north-east  was  asked  the 
most  valuable  product  of  his  section,  he 
replied  with  unction,  "  Men,  sir,  men ! " 
Cornelia's  jewels  are  still  the  wealth  of  a 
woman  and  a  state.  The  significance  of 
Penelope's  virtue  is  yet  vital.  For  her  right 
to  rise  from  the  ills  that  assail  her  sex  in 
industry,  her  right  to  retain,  through  present 
enforced  toil,  her  titles  to  future  dignity  and 
happiness,  I  make  this  plea  for  the  working- 
girl. 

For  woman's  best  is    unbegun,    her  advent  yet  to 
come. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX, 


I. 

THE  following  are  the  views  of  the  celebrated 
M.  Parent  Duchalet  of  Paris  as  to  the  require- 
ment of  such  a  Council  of  Salubrity  as  I  have  re- 
ferred to. 

u  It  is  generally  thought  in  the  world,  that  the  medi- 
cal knowledge  acquired  in  the  schools  is  ah1  that  is 
necessary  to  become  a  useful  member  of  the  council. 
The  greater  part  of  medical  men  themselves  share  this 
opinion  ;  and,  on  the  strength  of  some  precepts  they 
have  collected  from  books  on  health  and  professions, 
they  think  themselves  sufficiently  instructed  to  decide 
on  the  instant  the  gravest  questions,  which  can  only 
be  resolved  by  special  studies. 

"  A  man  may  have  exhausted  medical  literature  ;  he 
may  be  an  excellent  practitioner  at  the  sick-bed,  a 
learned  physician,  a  clever  and  eloquent  professor;  but 
all  these  acquirements,  taken  in  themselves,  are  nearly 
useless  in  a  'Conseil  de  Salubrite'  like  that  of 

Paris  ;  and,  if  an  occasion  presents  itself  to  make  use 

155 


156  APPENDIX. 

of  them,  a  very  small  number  of  persons  suffice  to 
apply  them.  To  be  really  useful  in  the  council,  it  is 
necessary  to  have  an  extended  knowledge  of  natural 
philosophy,  of  the  constitution  of  the  soil  on  which 
the  state  or  city  stands,  and  of  the  geology  of  neigh- 
boring regions;  it  is  necessary,  above  all,  to  know 
with  exactness  the  action  which  trades  may  have  on 
the  health  of  those  who  exercise  them,  and  the  much 
more  important  action  of  manufactories  of  every  spe- 
cies on  plants,  on  men  congregated  in  towns,  and  on 
animals.  This  knowledge,  so  important,  of  the  action 
of  trades  and  manufactories,  is  not  to  be  acquired  by 
ordinary  study,  or  in  the  silence  of  the  cabinet.  It  is 
not  to  be  obtained  without  positive  notions  on  the 
arts,  and  on  the  greater  part  of  the  processes  peculiar 
to  each  trade.  It  requires  habit,  and  the  frequenting 
of  the  places  of  work.  In  this  particular,  more  even 
than  in  medicine,  books  are  not  a  substitute  for  prac- 
tice ;  and,  if  there  exist  works  on  this  subject,  they 
are  more  likely  to  mislead  than  enlighten. 

"From  what  has  been  said,  the  necessity  will  be 
evident,  to  introduce  into  the  council  those  physicians 
who  have  made  health,  and  particularly  the  public 
health,  a  special  study  ;  and  to  join  with  them  chem- 
ists, and,  above  all,  manufacturing  chemists  :  because 
what  would  many  of  those  persons,  whose  life  has 
been  passed  in  hospitals  and  the  exclusive  study  of 
medicine,  be  before  a  steam-engine  ?  It  is  clear  that 


APPENDIX.  157 

they  would  often  be  deceived  by  those  adroit  and  skil- 
ful manufacturers  who  would  have  an  interest  in  con- 
cealing the  truth." 

II. 

Since  putting  these  sheets  to  press  I  have  re- 
ceived the  following  from  a  lady  operator  with 
whom  I  had  held  conversation  as  to  the  special 
effects  of  telegraphy  :  — 

BOSTON,  Feb.  28, 1875. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Pardon  my  delay,  but  I  was  obliged 
to  wait  some  time  to  hear  from  the  friend  I  men- 
tioned. I  find  her  views  are  similar  to  my  own,  and 
have  nothing  new  to  offer.. 

I  made  inquiries  of  the  ladies  employed  in  my 
room,  as  you  requested;  and  all,  with  one  exception, 
declared  the  business  had  no  damaging  effect  upon 
the  menstrual  function :  in  that  respect  they  have  ex- 
perienced no  change  since  they  entered  the  business. 
Take  it  as  a  whole,  I  believe  telegraphy  exerts  no 
unfavorable  influence  in  that  direction,  although  it 
would  seem  to  be  a  natural  result  on  account  of  the 
nervousness  inseparable  from  the  business.  Those  I 
have  consulted  say  every  other  function  will  be  af- 
fected except  the  menstrual. 

It  is  certainly  true,  that  the  business  impairs  the 
health  of  operators  who  work  steadily,  and  they 


158  APPENDIX. 

begin  to  run  down  in  a  year  or  so.  Constipation  is 
one  great  evil,  and  a  general  weariness.  There  is  a 
constant  strain  upon  the  nerves  and  brain  that  -is  not 
required  in  other  business;  and  yet  our  work  has 
many  advantages  over  other  branches.  Sitting  so 
much  is  bad,  but  preferable  to  standing  in  a  store  from 
morning  to  night. 

With  a  little  rest  now  and  then,  or,  at  least,  a  Long 
vacation  once  a  year,  I  think  the  ladies  would  get 
along  very  well.  Of  course  every  one  would  prefer  to 
rest  at  certain  times ;  but,  if  women  must  work,  I  don't 
know  but  telegraphy  is  as  healthy  as  any  other  busi- 
ness. 

Respectfully  Yours,          

It  is  to  be  said,  in  comment  on  the  above,  that 
in  the  office  in  question  there  is  no  operator 
under  twenty,  and  that  a  careful  inquiry  has 
established  the  fact,  that  though  this  is  the  case, 
besides  the  disturbances  spoken  of  above,  two  at 
least  are  sufferers  from  dysmenorrhea,  and  two 
from  occasional  menorrhagia  which  always  im- 
proves on  taking  a  vacation. 


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